The next time downtown Morgan Hill floods, or a major earthquake
rattles South County, residents will likely get a phone call from
the county’s office of emergency services explaining what to do
next. And residents who register their cell phone numbers and
e-mail addresses on the new AlertSCC Web site will receive
electronic text messages as well.
The next time downtown Morgan Hill floods, or a major earthquake rattles South County, residents will likely get a phone call from the county’s office of emergency services explaining what to do next. And residents who register their cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses on the new AlertSCC Web site will receive electronic text messages as well.
Santa Clara County’s AlertSCC program went online this week, almost a year after the city of Morgan Hill gained access to the emergency notification system for a trial run sponsored by the county.
AlertSCC is an automated system with the capacity to send thousands of text and voice messages within minutes to home and business land line phones.
“The County has led a unified and collaborative effort to ensure that everyone in Santa Clara County will benefit from AlertSCC,” said Supervisor Ken Yeager, who brought the alert system initiative to the Board of Supervisors in 2007. “The range and flexibility of communication options to be offered will keep our residents safe and well-informed.”
While the system uses all land lines from local 411 and 911 databases, to reach cell phones, PDA’s, laptops, desktop computers, and devices for the hearing impaired, anyone who lives or works in the county must register their cell phone numbers or e-mail address at www.AlertSCC.com.
The system can be used for emergency and community service notifications such as fires, crime incidents, hazmat incidents, infectious disease information, contaminated food warnings, road or school closures, and contacting disaster service workers.
Information entered on the AlertSCC Web site will be confidential, and the county will not use it for any reason other than the distribution of notifications, Supervisor Don Gage assured. “Your information is not going to go out to anybody, so you’re safe in that respect,” Gage said.
This year, the city of Morgan Hill has used the alert notification system in response to two incidents. The first time, in March, police sent out automated phone messages to warn all Morgan Hill residents about an unknown assailant who carried out a series of attacks on random women in the parking lots of local grocery stores. The message alerted residents to the incidents and advised them to take extra precautions in shopping center parking lots.
The second time the system was used locally was Sept. 22, when a false Amber alert text message was going around reporting the kidnapping of a 3-year-old girl in Morgan Hill. The city distributed a phone message to let citizens know that there was no truth to the kidnapping report, according to Morgan Hill director of emergency services Jennifer Ponce, who called the program “a wonderful tool.”
“Morgan Hill can use it to warn citizens, or to provide information on important events,” Ponce explained. It could be used to announce community events, but Ponce said it is unlikely the city would use it for that purpose.
The web-based system also sends back a report informing the user how many messages were received, how many people hung up before the message was completed, and how many times a busy signal was reached, Ponce explained while demonstrating the software in her office at the Morgan Hill Police station Wednesday. It can also resend messages that reached a busy signal or answering machine.
In the event of emergencies that might only affect a single neighborhood, like a minor hazardous materials spill or a small wildfire, Ponce showed how she could draw a circle around the affected area on a map on her computer and direct the program to only send alerts to phone numbers inside that circle.
Furthermore, AlertSCC can be used internally within emergency services offices, for example to notify SWAT team members or radio operators of incidents that require their attention.
This week’s rollout of AlertSCC countywide allows the county’s individual cities to use the system independently. But because some emergencies, such as earthquakes and wildfires, can cross city limits, county officials said it is important for its emergency services to have access to the county’s 1.7 million residents through AlertSCC.
Officials urged citizens to sign up their cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses for their own safety, as not all residents will be near a land line every time a disaster happens.
“Registering for AlertSCC may be as crucial to surviving a disaster as making a family emergency plan and assembling a home disaster supplies kit, and it only takes a few minutes,” County Executive Jeffrey Smith said.
AlertSCC will supplement existing emergency communication methods. It will not take the place of the 911 and other systems that first responders currently use, county officials said.
The county Office of Emergency Services did not return phone calls requesting information on the costs associated with AlertSCC.
