La Plata County Emergency Alert "Reverse 911"

La Plata County's Emergency Alert System: Target Notification

This is the primary alerting system in La Plata County. CenturyLink land lines are automatic. All other phone types NEED TO SIGN UP!

The alert system uses phones to call a geographic area and give emergency messages. Emergency personnel pick a point on a map and give a radius or draw a boundary on a map. The system picks up LAND LINE phones associated to an address in an identified area. This means your CenturyLink (formerly QWest) phone should be picked up automatically. Other phones like Cell, Digital, Voice over IP (VoIP), Skype, Cable (phone connected to your digital TV coax cable), and other systems are NOT included; UNLESS: You register your phone with our Target Notification alert system! If you live in or own a home in La Plata County Go to Intrado's Target Notification registration page. This allows you to register multiple phones of any phone system and attach them to your address. This is what you must do to get notifications on any phone other than your land line. The registration page will ask you for your name and address. This should be your name as owner or occupant of the house. The site will also ask you to put wireless/cellular in one column and Internet based VoIP in the other.

Each phone system operates differently and uses different protocols to dial out so the numbers need to be separated.  Target Notification will not use your numbers for any other purpose than to facilitate La Plata County Emergency Calls so please don't worry about telemarketers.

It takes a few days for the system managers to verify your cell and other numbers so do it now. Don't wait till we are in the middle of a disaster. It may be too late. 

You can add multiple numbers to one address. A phone number can only be associated with one address in La Plata County. You can not list your cell at more than one address.

Our emergency messages should be structured for you to understand what is happening:

• Messages that go out will start with something like "This is an Emergency Message from The La Plata County Sheriff and Office of Emergency Management..." to let you know who is sending the message. 
• We will issue messages like "A wildfire is spreading towards ___ subdivision north of Durango" letting you know where and in relation to what, in case you get a call on your cell while on vacation in Texas. 
• We will give an action item of what to do like shelter in place, prepare for possible evacuation later, or to evacuate immediately. 
• We will give you direction for what to do for the action like close doors and windows, drive South towards the high school or where the shelter is. 
• Last will be where to get more information such as a radio station, phone number, or a place to go.

Other agencies like Fire and Police have access and their own protocols for using the alert system.

La Plata County OEM will try and do the best we can with getting messages out but remember that you need be responsible for your own personal safety. If you see smoke heading your way or a rising river, call 911 and do what you need to do to protect yourself and your family.

Other Emergency Alert and Information Sources from La Plata County

When an emergency or disaster strikes La Plata County, responders have many ways to get messages out to you besides our Target Notification "Reverse 911" system.

• Drive-through Sirens - Sheriff or Fire vehicles using combination of sirens and Public Address
• We may utilize people power to get immediate emergency messages out. If you see a Sheriff vehicle with lights and sirens rolling through the neighborhood slowly - PAY ATTENTION what they say may save your life!
• Weather Radio - Emergency Management can use this system for more than weather.  
• La Plata County OEM maintains close ties with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction. If the situation warrants, we can have them launch an emergency alert over their Weather Radio system for our area. We may use it for wildfire, hazardous material spill, or any life safety incident that may affect a broad portion of the County
• NOAA maintains the weather radio system across the country to keep everyone up to date on weather emergencies. The system sends a tone to special weather radios that is followed by an emergency alert like flash flood warnings, tornado warning, etc. All day, the radios are transmitting weather reports behind the scenes. We listen daily to the morning reports to give us an idea of climate and forecast for the area. 
• Battery operated weather radios are fairly inexpensive from online, Radio Shack or even Walmart. Take a look on google. To get local alerts, each radio has to be programmed with the associated local "SAME" code. Ours is 008067. If you have a VHF radio or scanner you can listen to the 24/7 broadcasts at 162.425 MHZ. 
• Fore more on NOAA Weather Radios check out http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/  and our local tower information at  http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/Maps/PHP/site.php?State=CO&Site=KWN54 
• Media - We utilize newspaper, websites and commercial radio 
• La Plata County has a very active Public Information Network made up of information specialists from law enforcement, fire, government, volunteer groups, local businesses and many others. When emergencies arise, the group goes into action to get messages to our citizens through every channel needed and available. We can target the message by using local radio and the Durango Herald or go bigger and include news agencies from Albuquerque and Denver. 
• Twitter - @LPC_OEM - you don't have to have twitter to get tweets
• La Plata County OEM maintains a twitter account to put our some of the alerts and notifications quickly. We try and keep up with National Weather Service weather alerts and big events that may impact you. If La Plata County OEM is involved in an incident, we will most likely update the twitter feed regularly of how the incident may impact you.
• We regularly put our weather events with links to the NWS alert. We try and put out alerts like "Fire Dept is responding to a report of smoke in the 9000 block of CR 999" when we become involved in an event. 
• To get the feed:
• Bookmark  http://twitter.com/#!/lpc_oem
• If you have your own Twitter account, follow @lpc_oem
• If you don't have a twitter account you can get the feed by text. send "follow lpc_oem" to the number 40404 and you will get a text when we send a tweet
• This blog is linked to the twitter feed so what happens on one shows on the other. 
• The  http://co.laplata.co.us/emergency page shows the twitter feed as well. 
• La Plata County Website -  http://co.laplata.co.us/emergency
• In bigger events, the La Plata County website home page will show an alert. If you go to the home page  http://co.laplata.co.us/ and look in the left hand side under "How do I find" and you should see a green dot next to "EMERGENCY ALERT". When we post an alert the button turns red. If you click the button the page that pops up will have alerts and official County statements. 
• Door-to-Door - knocking door-to-door or posting letters at your property
• When all else fails, we may go door to door to get the message out. La Plata County Sheriff Deputies and Fire personnel will likely be the first out on this duty.  Sheriff's Mounted Patrol and La Plata County Search and Rescue (SAR) will likely be more involved as an event goes on. Sheriff Deputies or Fire personnel may come to your door without flyers in hand. Look for their badge and official vehicle. Mounted patrol and SAR should be in their uniform and should hand out flyers with official statements and direction of where to get verification of those statements. 

Helping Us Help You - An Intro to Emergency Alerts

As Spring rolls in and we move into Fire Season across Southwest Colorado, now is the perfect time to do some Spring cleaning. I'm not talking about polishing the furniture and cleaning the fridge. I'm talking about checking up on your ability to be notified of emergencies from the Sheriff, Emergency Management and your Fire District. La Plata County uses several forms of notification:

• Target Notification - Emergency Alert Connect (commonly referred to as "Reverse 911") 
• See More Below

Other Alerting options: Check out - Other Emergency Alert and Information Sources from La Plata County

• Drive-through Sirens - Sheriff or Fire vehicles using combination of sirens and Public Address
• Weather Radio - Emergency Management can use this system for more than weather
• Media - We utilize newspaper, websites and commercial radio 
• Twitter - @LPC_OEM - you don't have to have twitter to get tweets
• La Plata County website -  http://co.laplata.co.us/emergency
• Door-to-door - knocking door-to-door or posting letters at your property

In some situations you may have lots of time to prepare for an evacuation. You will have time to see things coming if it's been raining for 3 days and the river is slowly rising to flood levels. You will probably have time to prepare if a wildfire starts a few miles away and moves slowly. What would happen if the fire started in your subdivision or 2 inches of rain falls in an hour just up the hill?

The La Plata County Office of Emergency Management keeps a watchful eye on weather and any incident that may affect the safety of our community. We keep tabs on rain, snow and wind; listen to radio traffic about haz-mat and road closures, watch stream gauges, watch for health emergencies, listen for lock-downs and monitor land slides. We try and keep a coordinated effort from responding agencies: County Government, Sheriff, Fire/EMS, volunteer groups, and others. When we or other primary first responders see the need, we begin to notify the public. As our list of options shows, we have a lot of tools to get the message out. We will try to use the best method or combination of methods that fits the situation and our available resources

La Plata County's Emergency Alert System: Target Notification

This is the primary alerting system in La Plata County. CenturyLink land lines are automatic. All other phone types NEED TO SIGN UP!

The alert system uses phones to call a geographic area and give emergency messages. Emergency personnel pick a point on a map and give a radius or draw a boundary on a map. The system picks up LAND LINE phones associated to an address in an identified area. This means your CenturyLink (formerly QWest) phone should be picked up automatically. Other phones like Cell, Digital, Voice over IP (VoIP), Skype, Cable (phone connected to your digital TV coax cable), and other systems are NOT included; UNLESS: You register your phone with our Target Notification alert system! If you live in or own a home in La Plata County Go to Intrado's Target Notification registration page. This allows you to register multiple phones of any phone system and attach them to your address. This is what you must do to get notifications on any phone other than your land line. The registration page will ask you for your name and address. This should be your name as owner or occupant of the house. The site will also ask you to put wireless/cellular in one column and Internet based VoIP in the other.

Each phone system operates differently and uses different protocols to dial out so the numbers need to be separated.  Target Notification will not use your numbers for any other purpose than to facilitate La Plata County Emergency Calls so please don't worry about telemarketers.

It takes a few days for the system managers to verify your cell and other numbers so do it now. Don't wait till we are in the middle of a disaster. It may be too late.

You can add multiple numbers to one address. A phone number can only be associated with one address in La Plata County. You can not list your cell at more than one address.

Our emergency messages should be structured for you to understand what is happening:

• Messages that go out will start with something like "This is an Emergency Message from The La Plata County Sheriff and Office of Emergency Management..." to let you know who is sending the message. 
• We will issue messages like "A wildfire is spreading towards ___ subdivision north of Durango" letting you know where and in relation to what, in case you get a call on your cell while on vacation in Texas. 
• We will give an action item of what to do like shelter in place, prepare for possible evacuation later, or to evacuate immediately. 
• We will give you direction for what to do for the action like close doors and windows, drive South towards the high school or where the shelter is. 
• Last will be where to get more information such as a radio station, phone number, or a place to go.

Other agencies like Fire and Police have access and their own protocols for using the alert system.

La Plata County OEM will try and do the best we can with getting messages out but remember that you need be responsible for your own personal safety. If you see smoke heading your way or a rising river, call 911 to alert authorities and do what you need to do to protect yourself and your family.