City Looks at Starting Emergency Alert System for Residents

Suppose a fugitive had camped out in the basement of a city home, then fled into the community when he was discovered? Would you want updates about who to look for and what to do if you saw him?

This scenario actually happened several weeks ago in Olivette, and it was one of the examples cited last week as Olivette city council members considered a plan to provide emergency information updates by telephone to residents.

Council members heard the plan at last Tuesday's workshop meeting. The system would be modeled after one used in Maplewood, which pays a vendor named CodeRed to provide the technology.

Olivette Fire Chief John Bailot said the system could be used to notify residents about cases of armed robbery, missing children, hostage situations, natural gas leaks, a chemical leak on Olive or 170 and similar emergencies.

He noted that such a system would have come in handy in late 2006 and early 2007, when severe storms knocked out power and residents were looking for lots of information about power outages.

In Maplewood, officials work with the same vendor and pay $5,840 annually to provide general notifications and another $3,750 for automated weather alert warnings that come from the National Weather Service.

Maplewood Fire Chief Terry Merrell told Patch the city has 2,771 subscribers to the service, plus another 381 who only get notifications through email or text messages.

"The weather warnings are extremely targeted," Merrell said. "It's all done by computer. They look at the track of the storm systems, and if severe weather is going to happen in Richmond Heights, but not in Maplewood, we don't get a notification."

Olivette is considering a three-year contract with CodeRed that would cost $7,635 in the first year and $9,260 in each of last two years.

Council member Jean Antoinne wanted to know if there was information about how effective these systems are.

City Manager Mike McDowell told Patch that Olivette city staff would be trained to use the system an provide the updates, outside of the automated weather alerts.

The city council is expected to formally vote on a contract with CodeRed at its meeting on Tuesday.

Patch Regional Editor Kurt Greenbaum contributed to this report.

Would you sign up for such a service if it were available in Olivette? Why or why not?