Posted on 10/12/2017 2:29:05 PM PDT by BenLurkin
In the early hours of the blaze, officials at the Sonoma County Fire and Emergency Services Department discussed sending something similar to an Amber Alert to cell phones in the area, but chose not to since it would have gone to tens of thousands of people not in immediate danger.
The type of warning, called a Wireless Emergency Alert, can only target phones in large geographic areas, according to Sonoma County Fire and Emergency Services Coordinator Zachary Hamill, who made the decision not to send the wireless alert together with the county’s emergency manager, Christopher Helgren.
“If I had done the Wireless Emergency Alert I would have been notifying Petaluma, Cotati, Rohnert Park, Sebastopol, Sonoma — all of the cities and unincorporated areas in the county,” Hamill said.
“And I didn’t need to do that, I needed to focus on who specifically needed” help. Jennifer Larocque, a spokeswoman for Sonoma County, said that sending such a widespread warning could have made it hard for first responders to combat the fire and help those in need.
“Providing mass information to people not affected could have caused mass traffic backups, which could have impacted emergency service providers and delayed emergency response,” Larocque said.
The Sonoma County Fire and Emergency Services Department is one of dozens of California agencies that can send Wireless Emergency Alerts, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which administers the service. All major cell phone carriers have the technology, and everyone targeted by the alerts receives them unless they have actively opted not to get them. Use of the alerts — in which only 90 characters can be transmitted — has seen mixed success in California when used for wildfire warnings.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfchronicle.com ...
Kalifornia logic. Unless EVERYONE is equally in danger, NO ONE is in danger..................
I’m glad they didn’t send such an alert.
I was over fourty miles south of the fires.
There was nothing I could have done about it.
I almost feel the same way about those Amber Alerts.
One should be able to request such info via an app.
I don’t see the utility of telling everyone in this part of the state about a local domestic crime everytime.
This is not good.
You were 40 miles south, but other people (including the many who burned to death in their beds) were in the way.
So would it have interrupted your slumbers that much to have heard the alert and turned it off if you felt it didn’t affect you? Especially if it would have saved people from burning to death?
There are several hundred people missing, and the only remains they have found so far in the course of putting out the fire are ashes and bone shards that can’t be identified unless relatives know who they might be because of where they lived. And they expect to find many more as they clean up.
So I guess you could interrupt your slumbers, no?
An Amber Alert is sent out to save one life. In this case it sounds like really bad training. Obviously it should have been sent.
How about texting it? California drivers would think nothing of reading it while driving.
Lawsuits once the courthouse is rebuilt, if not sooner. The tax burden just deepened.
‘This to me is mind-boggling ‘
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I can’t really fathom it either. Not alerting people seems like a crime.
I imagine they have more detailed information on their website regarding the fires - or if not, develop one. I know there are national fire websites where you can track progress.
Hit the ALERT to go out on all the cell phones, tell people you MAY be in danger, and go IMMEDIATELY to the website “www.fireevacuate.com” for details.
Or - reply via text with your address and get a text reply of LEAVE IMMEDIATELY, and within other zones have other replies (check website now; be ready to go in 8 hours; etc.)
‘I don’t see the utility of telling everyone in this part of the state about a local domestic crime everytime.’
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With all due respect, Lee, this wasn’t a crime towards one person; it’s a natural disaster that affects hundreds, if not thousands, of people.
This case suggests that there is precedent for denying any claims against the county:
SUSMAN v. CITY OF LOS ANGELES
269 Cal.App.2d 803 (1969)
https://www.leagle.com/decision/19691072269calapp2d8031974.xml
Yup. Or at least:
Turn on the news.
And put on your shoes.
Forgot - just waking people up and telling them to look out their windows for flames would have been nice. “If you see flames - LEAVE!” (Not kidding - I imagine they would sneak up on sleeping people).
In the Midwest we had the old air-raid sirens for tornado warnings they don’t have those in California anymore? Although we were far enough away from one I’m not sure it would have awakened me. Could hear it in the house - but it wasn’t real loud.
California Drivers...
I want to know if the driverless cars are going to be programmed to exchange gunfire in California?
If it’s like Amber then they could have been very specific on where the impacted area was in the alert. Sheesh...
If they can prove it was imperative to sound the alarm, it’s wide open.
I’m glad they didn’t send it. My daughter goes to Sonoma State and she was far away from the fires at that point.
So, they couldn’t have crafted a geographically limiting message with 90 characters? That’s insane and bovine excrement! Do they think people are too dumb to read? Oh, that’s right, it is California.
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