The first large-scale use of a ‘reverse 911’ system in Port Clint...
The first large-scale use of a “reverse 911” system in Port Clinton, O., generated a “totally unacceptable” number of complaints about calls that went astray, officials said. Reverse 911 systems use autodialing/announcing devices to notify people by phone of…
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emergencies and give instructions. In Port Clinton, potential water contamination arising from a major water main break led Ottawa County public safety officials to use their 2-year-old reverse 911 system, administered by the N.Y.-based Community Alert Network (CAN), to advise people in certain sections of the city to boil tap water before drinking it. Many people in the danger zone complained they never received the calls, while others far outside that zone said they did. The system had been used once before, in Nov. 2002, to alert a couple of hundred residents about tornado danger, but this was the first use of reverse 911 to notify thousands of a danger. All told, 2,121 calls were placed, but only 1,753 got through. Several dozen calls went to locations outside the danger areas. The CAN said it had believed the seller of the phone number database it used was reliable. To prevent a recurrence, Ottawa County said it would get from Verizon a CD containing the same database used by the regular E911 system and would forward that to CAN. Officials said they hoped the corrected listings would be in place within 3 weeks.