Do you have a way to get emergency alerts?

Emergency Manager Tiffany Brown covers the basics of emergency alerting, including what tools Lane County uses, how people can sign up to get important safety information, and when the alerts don't work. 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Register for Lane Alerts
• Update your existing Lane Alerts account
• Watch a short video about emergency alerts
• Infomation about FEMA's IPAWS system

Listen here or on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Listen online or on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Podcasts or Spotify.

You can find more information, including episodes and show notes, at LaneCountyOR.gov/fan. Sign up to receive emergency alerts at LaneAlerts.org.

The views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of Lane County Government.

Transcript

The transcript is AI generated and lightly edited for glaring errors. Please excuse minor errors.

Introduction

Welcome to When It Hits the Fan, Lane County's favorite podcast for all things emergency preparedness. Whether you're just dipping your toes into the world of emergency preparedness or you've been building bunkers since Y2K, we've got something for you. Hosted by Lane County Emergency Management, this podcast is all about equipping you with the knowledge and resources to be prepared and stay safe, no matter what hits the fan.

Devon

Hi Tiffany.

Tiffany

Hey, Devon. Nice to see you again.

Devon

It's nice to see you, too. I know that you've had a really busy summer so far, but what is new in the world of emergency management?

Tiffany

It has been busy so far. Thanks for asking. At the top of the list is that we have a new emergency coordinator focusing on training and exercise, Jon Stueve. So he came to us about a month ago and we're delighted to have him. We had a heat event at the beginning of July that kicked us off and got us sort of spun up for the rest of the season. And it's only July 23rd as we tape this session and wildfire season has started.

Devon

It's shaping up to be a very busy season too.

Tiffany

It looks that way to me.

Devon

Well, I think that the topics we're covering are really timely. You know, our last episode, we had the Sheriff to talk about what evacuation means, and certainly we have had multiple evacuation notifications go out so far this summer. But we also get a lot of questions about emergency alerts and how they work.

It's an area that our community is continuing to get more exposure to. Unfortunately, due to primarily all these fires. It's an area that's also a little complex. And I'd love just to talk about how it really works and what residents, you know, people on the ground need to know about it in order to use it well. If that makes sense.

Tiffany

Absolutely. What a great timing to start talking about alerting right now. These are not complex systems, but it's relatively complicated. And so I'll do my best to break it down. We have an emergency alerting system in the county called Lane Alerts. How do we get ahold of people? Well, we have contact information from them, and we get it two ways.

We get it from the phone companies and that's becoming less valuable all the time as people abandon landlines. And then we have information that people provide to us themselves. So that's our we call that opt-in data. That means we don't have a way to get that unless you give it. The landline phone companies give us their contact information, but we're not there with the cell phone companies.

And so in order to notify people in our county via cell phones, we need for them to register their phones themselves. So that's the local alerting system. Lane Alerts. Some people might be familiar with the federal alerting system that looks like Amber Alerts and trailers across cable television. It's Wireless Emergency Alerts. WEA, an emergency alert system as part of the IPAWS system.

And so those are alerts often sent by the federal government. But we have the ability at the local level also to access that federal system and send those alerts when we're in a very bad situation.

Devon

I think, just to clarify for people, Lane Alerts is part of a larger system that is thankfully paid for, but also maintained by the State of Oregon.

And so if people have heard reference or seen advertisements for OR-Alerts, it's the same system. But when you put your address in, it tells you, oh, you're in Lane County and so you're part of Lane Alerts, right? Because certainly here in Lane County, we aren't going to be alerting, you know, people that live in Yamhill County of anything.

So it's like a subset. So those systems are one in the same. So if you've registered for one you've registered for the other.

Tiffany

Thanks for pointing that out. Yes. The State of Oregon adopted the system a couple of years ago, and I think every county now has it. And that is really great news in the public safety environment for continuity.

These are really fragile systems in terms of public trust. So the fact that we're all using the same system really bodes well for things going well in the future. So I don't expect the State to be sending alerts, but in a pinch they'd be able to back up a county or send statewide if needed.

Devon

Yeah. And I think that statewide system really came about after the 2020 Labor Day Fires.

And that really drove the recognition of the need for a more consistent tool for counties. Here in Lane County we had our own system, and so we were able to send alerts and communicate with residents during the Holiday Farm Fire, of course, up until some of the infrastructure burned. And we can talk a little bit about that later.

But not every county was in that position. And so it was, one of the first things I remember the State doing after after those fires.

Tiffany

Yes. That's true.

Devon

How do we decide what alerts to use?

Tiffany

Yes. I think the most important part of your question is we, right? None of us are making those decisions in a vacuum.

Let's use wildfires. The example we're relying on, our fire partners out in the field to communicate with Search and Rescue. And you as the public information officer and start developing that decision-making. We talked to the Sheriff about that last month, about how he works closely with the fire service to determine what level of evacuation will be assigned.

Let's recap those, shall we? For the listeners, level one is be ready, prepare to evacuate. Level two is be set, be prepared to evacuate immediately. And three is go now, leave immediately. So we use this system to communicate those levels of evacuation. And those decisions are made, as a group. And when we're talking about evacuation levels, particularly level three, we utilize all aspects of the system.

I would also remind our listeners that in an ideal situation, we're starting with a level one, and we're ramping it up to a two and a three. But as we've seen before, and as you could talk about yourself, Devon, sometimes we go right into level three, evacuate immediately.

Devon

Yeah, I think that's really important. And I wish we had gotten more into that in the last episode.

We don't always go one, two, three. Unfortunately, sometimes a fire starts really close to homes or it's been fairly inactive and all of a sudden it just blows up and we don't have time to give people that level one. It's you need to leave right now. And that's always a really unfortunate situation. But it does happen. And I think historically, if we're putting out a level one, especially, but even often a level two, we are using Lane Alerts, the subscriber system and the landline information to send communications directly to the people living in those zones.

We aren't necessarily pushing the big red button for IPAWS.

Tiffany

Right.

Devon

And part of the reason for that is it goes much, much further than just the evacuation area. And so it has the potential to cause confusion and a little bit of panic. And so we're always weighing that. Right. Between making sure that we have enough communication going out in enough different ways while also not overdoing it in a way that creates more problems for people. And it's always a hard balance.

Tiffany

That's, great reminder. I know in my old county, the alert through the federal system went to the entire county and even bled out a little bit. Is that the same here, or are we broken up more than one piece?

Devon

So when it comes to the Emergency Alert System, the EAS, that scrolls across the bottom of TV screens, it's the whole county or nothing. And so that's often the last of the big red buttons that we will push. And the WEA messages, the Wireless Emergency Alerts, those things that come up kind of like Amber alerts on a phone.

It makes that god awful honking noise and won't stop until you hit your screen. Those the system is supposed to keep them to in one-tenth of a mile of the box that you draw on the map. It is not how it works in our community. It goes all over the place. And I think part of that is due to we don't have as many cell phone towers here as like a big metropolitan area where they can be really precise.

We also have a lot of natural features that get in the way and sort of ping the signal around in an absolutely crazy manner. And so there are times when we're alerting, for example, a neighborhood outside of Lowell, and we get calls from people in Mapleton asking why they got a WEA. Well, I, I don't know exactly, and I'm really sorry but our system is just not as predictable here. And so that one, while it doesn't necessarily get the whole county, it can be a little unpredictable in unhelpful ways.

Tiffany

I've seen that happen as well. Cell phone towers can foil the best laid plans in terms of where people are traveling. The other thing I'd mentioned about EAS and WEA, you mentioned not using it for level two.

You might not be able to. Right? So one thing I think a lot of people don't understand is that we're able to access the system through Everbridge, but to access that system, it's the reason we're given landline numbers. We have to meet a threshold of imminent threat to people and property. And when we try, when we send that message, it literally goes through a desk at FEMA and a real person looks at it to ensure that we've met that threshold.

So people should know that if they're getting those messages it's very serious, right.

Devon

And we take that very seriously. I, for one, don't want to end up in FEMA jail. but we also - and you and I have talked about this - we don't want to overuse the system to a point that people stop paying attention to it because we're just irritating them.

Tiffany

I appreciate you bringing up the balanced approach.

Devon

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't want to hear from us that much. So I know that people just living in the community also don't want to hear from us that much. What can cause alerts to fail? Because we always encourage people to have multiple ways to receive information.

Tiffany

Well, there really isn't one golden ticket for any of this, is there?

We need redundant communications. We need redundant resources for a number of things where disasters are concerned. I really group failures for mass notification systems pretty basically into three buckets. one is, that makes my stomach hurt, is untrained and inexperienced staff. And that's not something that's not a problem that we have in Lane County, but you don't need to be an emergency manager to know, to see some examples of this.

2018 was a big year for, for failed messages from the user standpoint. It was January of that year that Hawaii sent the failed missile. They were having an exercise and they sent it accidentally. So that happened. That's a failed message type where we send it to an unintended audience that was not. And and the reason these are important, when they happen and important to talk about is because there is so much fragility in terms of public trust with these systems, and so knowing how to use them and when to use them is important, so that people will use them and have trust in them so that we have them on the very bad days when we need them. I can't help but think about and this is something we just talked about November of 2018 was the Camp Fire in Paradise. And that's something I want to talk about. The failure of the messaging in that system was that they had not adequately marketed the system, and so they had the landline numbers, but they didn't have opt-ins.

And that's why this campaign that we're running now is so important to get those cell phone numbers. Yes, we'll reach them if we can send a WEA, use the federal system. But for, for important things that happened before that we really need citizens to get into our system and register their cell phone numbers.

Devon

Yeah, I think there's another bucket here that is not unique to Lane County, but I feel like we could be the poster child for it and that our it's the infrastructure piece that can cause issues.

And I don't want to sound like I am not a fan of the system. I think Lane Alerts is great. I have bullied and harassed all of my family to sign up for it. It is a wonderful tool and it works really well in a lot of situations, but our topography and some of the types of disasters that we experience are a challenge.

So may I climb up on my soapbox for a few minutes, Tiffany?

Tiffany

Please.

Devon

Okay. And I feel really strongly about this and people having a good understanding of this, especially people that live in outlying areas. It's not as much of an issue for people that live in the Eugene,-Springfield metro area or some of our bigger small cities, but especially for outlying areas.

Sometimes that infrastructure fails. During the Holiday Farm Fire, the tower that served most of that valley burned a couple of hours into the fire. There's some really dramatic footage of the tower burning, security camera footage, in our emergency alert educational video that absolutely killed our ability to reach people in the upper part of the Mackenzie Valley. For their rest of that event, we continued to send those alerts, and they were effective in the lower part of the valley as we were working to move people out of the way as the fire moved down the valley. But the reality is those towers aren't always well protected, and so that can cause a huge failure.

Tiffany

To your point, knowing how systems work in your area, having redundant sources, knowing where else to look. Do I go to a web page?

Do I have a NOAA weather radio? Now, if your phone's not working, your local weather radio might not either. But having a redundant source is always a good plan. Speaking of NOAA weather radios, having the NOAA National Weather Service app on your phone is a redundant way to receive messages about hazards or disasters that are happening in the area.

If you do have a landline account and have the ability, buy one and plug it in. It can't hurt, you're paying for it. So, it would be just another way for for agencies to get ahold of you as a resident if they needed to in an emergency.

Devon

Well, we've, we've talked a lot about the importance of registering for Lane Alerts. And so let's talk about how people do that. It's free, by the way. That helps.

Tiffany

That's great. You go to the county website lanealerts.org. And it takes you to the page where you sign up. I'd have a couple of tips about this. Have everyone in your household create their own registry. You don't know who's going to be home on that day.

And once the message is delivered, it may stop coming. And so you don't want to receive a message and have someone else in your household not receive the message because you did. So, don't you think so? Don't you think that's correct, Devon?

Devon

I do, and I really like the feature that allows people to put in multiple addresses. everyone should have their home address or a work and school address.

I have also added my grandmother's address so that in case something happens in the community where she lives, I can be aware right away too and do what I can to help her. And so there's a lot of potential to make sure you're getting the alerts for the places that are important to you and not not just at your home.

Tiffany

Thanks for bringing that up. That's great. Devon's referring to the ability we have to drop a shape on an area and notify anybody within that area so that if you have an address listed and we have an emergency in that area, whether it's work or home, you'll be notified. And I love that you have registered in your grandmother's community. For folks in the area who may be elderly or have people out of the area on whom they rely or communicate frequently, encourage people in your family to sign up for the local system.

Great. And then let's talk a little bit about the self-identifying page that we added before the marketing efforts, where you have an opportunity to self-identify as a person who may need assistance during a disaster, either due to mobility issues, evacuation needs, or that type of thing.

Devon

Yeah, we're really hoping to see people who register for new accounts or who go in and update their existing account take advantage of that.

It will help us better understand what the need is in a community, especially during an evacuation. Right. So it'll help us know that, oh, this is a neighborhood where people have a lot of livestock and they're indicating they don't have a way to move those animals. We, we should start working with our Animal Services people now to plan for that. Or we know we have a lot of people who have indicated they don't have transportation out of the area. We need to start working with our partners at Lane Transit District to see if we can help. So yeah, I think that's a great new feature that you've put into the system. What else can people do to maximize their chances of getting an alert? Do you have any other tips or tricks?

Tiffany

I think once you're registered, to update your registry if needed, just to keep in mind that that's something that if your phone number changes, your locations change, that's something that you want to get in and and update. We had the first annual test last month, and we'll be doing that at least once a year.

Part of the intent of that is to remind people that they are registered and to prompt them to update information. If they need to. Do you have any other suggestions that we didn't talk about?

Devon

So I know we're likely to spark additional questions, from this episode especially. We are going to plan for a Q&A episode at the end of this season, and I'd love to start hearing from people about what questions can we help get answers to? Is there something that we weren't clear enough about in an episode that you'd like to hear more?

And so please start sending those to our Public Information Office. And the email address is publicinformation@lanecountyor.gov. And we'll put a link to that in the show notes as well. But I'd love to start collecting those because the whole point of this is to get people good information. And so hearing directly from listeners what their most interested in I think can only, can only help.

We'd love to hear from you.

Tiffany

Wonderful.

Devon

And next time I think we're going to talk about go kits. And so that'll be another timely topic. What should you be packing or planning to pack in the event of an evacuation? And there's a lot of really good information there. So I really look forward to talking about that with you.

Tiffany

Me too. It's great to see you again, Devon.

Devon

All right. Stay out of trouble.

Tiffany

Thanks. Bye bye.

Devon

Bye.

Closing

When It Hits The Fan is brought to you by Lane County Emergency Management and co-hosted by Lane County Emergency Manager Tiffany Brown and Public Information Officer Devon Ashbridge. Music is by the Love Gems. Many thanks to our listeners and guests. We are so glad you're here to help us create a more prepared community. You can find more information, including episodes and show notes, at LaneCountyOR.gov/fan. 

Sign up to receive emergency alerts at LaneAlerts.org. The views expressed in this podcast do not necessarily reflect those of Lane County government.