New System Will Send Out Targeted Emergency Alerts Fast

If a train derailment causes a gas leak, or a chemical tanker overturns on a highway in Woodbury, a system will be in place soon to quickly notify residents in the affected area.

The Washington County Board voted last week to contract to use the CodeRed Emergency Notification system.

Public Health and Environment Director Lowell Johnson said he expects to begin advertising the service to the public and providing a platform for residents to add cell phone numbers and other numbers to the system’s database toward the end of June.

The system will be built on the county’s existing 911 database of addresses and phone numbers, so a homeowner with a landline is most likely already in the database, Johnson said. Residents will also have the option to get notifications by email or text message, he said.

Using the system, public safety departments can quickly get an alert out to a specific or broad area, Johnson said.

In Dakota County, officials used the system to notify residents within a certain radius about a man with Alzheimer’s disease who had wandered off. A resident found the man in his home and knew whom to call because he had received a phone message with the information, Johnson said.

“It could be a missing person kind of thing, or one of these more environmental emergencies, a natural disaster, chemical release, a whole variety of things,” Johnson said.

With train tracks and major interstate highways in the area, authorities could make use of a system like this in the case of a gas plume, said Oakdale Police Capt. Jack Kettler. He recalled one instance in which the scent that companies put in propane leaked from a site on the east side of St. Paul causing a plume of odor to pass through Oakdale.

Residents were not in any danger, since it was only scent that leaked and not the gas itself, but it would have been nice to have a method to get residents that information quickly, Kettler said.

“I think some people were smelling it and freaking out a little bit,” he said.

It’s not something the city will likely use often, but, “it’s nice to have the capability,” he said.

The county’s agreement with Emergency Communications Network, Inc., will run through Dec. 31, 2012, and cost $52,500 total.

Check back for information on when residents will be able to sign up additional numbers in the system.