As Alabamians know all too well, April weather can be lethally cruel. We are coming up on the fourth anniversary of the April 27, 2011 tornado outbreak that killed 248 across the state — including 21 in Jefferson County.
Earlier in the month, another anniversary quietly passed, that of the “Super Outbreak”of tornadoes that roared through the nation’s mid-section on April 3-4, 1974. The twisters killed 86 people in Alabama, and a number of the dead were in the same areas that were pounded by the storms of 2011.
Partly with the help of social media, weather radios, sirens and television meteorologists with doppler radar, a number of people escaped death or serious injury on April 27. Now officials have added a new tool to the mix in Jefferson County, a severe weather notification system that transmits National Weather Service storm warnings by text or voice to people living in parts of the county within a polygon, that now familiar term that refers to a specific area threatened by a storm. (Two of the traditional storm warning devices, weather radios and the more than 200 sirens now in Jefferson County, do not yet issue polygon-based warnings, but sound alarms whenever any part of the county is threatened.)
The new, free-of-charge Citizen Alert Notification system, a joint initiative by the Jefferson County Emergency Management Agency and the City of Birmingham 911 District, does even more than transmit targeted, more area-specific alerts. It also can compile important information on each person who registers, including any health issues they have that could worsen in the aftermath of a storm. First responders will have access to that information.
“We’re doing everything we possibly can, based on the current technology, to notify people,” said Jefferson County EMA director Jim Coker. “Because we don’t want all our eggs in one basket when the eggs are peoples’ lives … We’re trying to notify you as quick as we can, in every way that we can, so that you can make a decision (where to go, what to do) because lives may depend on the decision.”
The system is managed by Everbridge, a company founded after 9/11 that specializes in facilitating critical communications between public and private entities and the individuals they serve. Everbridge’s website states the company has more than 2,500 clients around the world. According to Wikipedia, Everbridge’s “system was used in 2012 to send over 10 million messages to residents during Hurricane Sandy and the city of Boston used Everbridge for its critical communications” after the Boston Marathon bombings in April 2013.
Here in Jefferson County, the notification system’s annual price tag is $140,000, with $90,000 paid by the county EMA and the rest by the Birmingham 911 District.
While the notification system only applies to addresses within Jefferson County, people living outside of the county can register if they provide a county address. In fact, the system already has registrants from places like Cullman, Anniston, and Tuscaloosa who’ve enrolled with the addresses of their workplaces in the county or the addresses of family members living here.
“I know of one lady that lives in New Jersey, but her family’s here,” Coker said. “So if something happens to her family here, she’ll be notified in New Jersey.”
Over time, Coker said, the system will be used in situations other than weather emergencies.
“Eventually, when we develop this system out, we can use it for hazmat (hazardous materials), for security issues like if there was a breakdown or something like that that you had to notify the public about,” Coker said. “Right now, the weather is first because we’re under the gun, so to speak. But as we continue to develop this thing, it will have a lot of other uses, too.”
A link to the notification system is prominent on the county website, and Coker said the EMA is encouraging other municipalities to put the link on their websites as well.
It takes about five minutes to register for the notification system. For it to work for you, you’ll need to put in the addresses with zip codes — work, home, or other — for which you want to be notified, and you indicate preferences for how you wish to be notified. For example, do you prefer a text or voice call to your cell phone, or a voice call to your landline at work?
You will be on the tornado warning list as soon as you have enrolled, and you can also pick from a range of other emergencies for which you want to be notified. Floods, fog, fire conditions and hard freezes are just a few of the examples.
Under Coker’s guidance, a reporter enrolled at the EMA office, listing preferences for notification as first, text message to cell phone, second, call to the cell, third call to home phone and fourth – email.
So what it’s going to do, it’s going to try to text you,” Coker said. “If it gets you there, it will stop. If it doesn’t get you on a text, it’s going to call you, and it will keep trying to get a hold of you until it gets you.”
The online application includes a section called “My Information.” Through separate checklists, it asks for “volunteer skills” that could be handy in an emergency, such as operating heavy equipment, being fluent in another language, being an emergency medical technician. The form also asks about occupation, whether the registrant had adult care or health care issues, special needs including vision impairment, limited mobility, a need for dialysis or refrigerated medicines; and whether there chemicals or other hazardous materials on site.
“If we had a power outtage, if we had an ice storm, (first responders) will now know who’s on dialysis, who has to have a refrigerated medicine like insulin, who’s on oxygen,” Coker said. “This will be on the map. They’ll know who to go check on. We couldn’t get that before.”