By Jeff Labine

Being prepared: Responders advocate for alert services

May 16, 2017 | 12:00 PM

Only a few thousand have signed up for Prince Albert’s mass emergency notification service, a number the city’s fire chief would like to see increased.

Roughly three years ago, the city’s fire department launched PA Alert as a way to notify residents on a massive scale. Since then more than 2,600 have signed up for the service. The system is meant to let people know about serious situations like a tornado touching down or a wildfire out of control.

Fire Chief Jason Everitt said the 2,600 who have signed up is a start.

“We would like to see the whole city sign up,” he said. “One of the challenges that responders have is communicating in a timely fashion with people who are obviously most affected by [an emergency]. A mass communication service we decided we needed to move forward with.”

A big push, he said, was to ensure the fire department could contact those living near the Nisbet forest because of the threats of forest fires.

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Residents sign up and choose how they want to be notified. There’s a variety of ways to get the notification including through text messages, automated phone calls or emails. The automated calls will go to both cellphones and landlines.

Everitt said the service is customizable to suit anyone’s needs.

So far, the alert has only been used once. Everitt said there was wildfire at Little Red River Park and the fire department wasn’t sure if they would be able to get the fire under control.

“We sent an evacuation alert to the residents in that area just essentially to be on standby,” he said. “If we didn’t get a handle on the fire, we would have to get them to move. As it turned out, everything worked out well and we got the fires under control.”

Following that incident, he said the department saw a surge in the number of people signing up. He suspects a similar situation might happen especially following the news two tornadoes were reported in the province over the weekend with one just south of Prince Albert.

He said when things are going well, the last thing people think about is being prepared for emergencies.

“We want to keep [PA Alert] at the forefront, we try and promote it every chance we get and encourage people to sign up,” he said.

For those worried about constant alerts popping up, Everitt explained the department would only use the service if the situation was very serious. He said there’s three criteria that need to be met before an alert is sent out. The threat has to be imminent, has the potential to cause serious injury or death and requires people to take some kind of action to protect themselves such as evacuating.

The cost to run the service is $5,000 and comes out of the department’s budget.

PA Alert isn’t the only option for those wanting to get a heads up on emergencies.

Parkland Ambulance director of public affairs Lyle Karasiuk said the Canadian Red Cross has an app called Be Ready, which not only provides alerts but tips on being prepared.

“Be Ready is the perfect app to put on your phone,” he said. “You can download it and it will work with your location so if there’s an alert notified such as what happened this weekend where there was possible potential for funnel clouds, it can be connected into those weather apps for you.”

Karasiuk acknowledged sometimes technology fails and he urged ressident to be aware of the signs of bad weather and learn more about it.

Regardless of the alert, he added what’s important is people getting the information they need.

Jeff.labine@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @labinereporter