By Pepper Fisher
CLALLAM COUNTY – Did you get this call Monday?
“Clallam County Emergency Management is transitioning to a new system for emergency alert notifications. Please visit the Clallam County Emergency Management website for information on registering for the new system.”
We got the call because I’m registered with the old system they’ve been using for years, called Code Red. But that doesn’t mean everyone in the old system is good to go, so they’ve set up an easy way to register on the County’s website.
Emergency Management Program Coordinator Anne Chastain says the new system will be a huge upgrade for the county.
“We found a new a new provider for that service. It’s cheaper and it reaches more people. One of the things about this new system, our old system reached under 40,000 phone numbers. This new system, even before we started this program and getting people to re-register and sign up for it, reached 89,000 people.”
Chastain says the new system gathers it’s contacts from public records. To be sure you’re on the list to be notified in the event of an emergency, they’re giving you the chance to do so easily.
“So, they get information, and they get names and phone numbers and stuff from public records. So, if you’ve registered your car, registered to vote, or bought a piece of property or sold a piece of property, your name is probably in a public information database. But sometimes those numbers, and that information, is not perfectly correct. So, what we’re doing with this is, we want to make sure that everybody that was in Code Red gets an opportunity to verify that they’re in the new system and corrected if the information is wrong.”
Just go to the Clallam County website, click on the Emergency Management link, and you’ll see the notice that takes you to the quick and easy sign-up form. Or, if you’d prefer, call Ann Chastain directly at (360) 417-2483 and she’ll personally look it up for you.