The Cariboo Regional District recently tested their new Voyent Alert Emergency Notification System.
On Tuesday (March 12) CRD Manager of Communications Gerald Pinchbeck said they sent out over forty thousand notification messages through landlines, text, email and on the Voyent Alert App.
He noted this was their first chance to really see how the system was going to work when we stress tested it with everyone on the CRD’s system.
“The test gave us some really valuable information before we actually had to worry about using the system in an emergency,” Pinchbeck said, “We learned that if you were signed up to receive text notifications, email notifications, or had downloaded the app, you would receive a notice right away as soon as we issued the alert.”
He said if those who were registered were relying on a phone call, because of the large volume of phone calls that third party telecommunications providers have to process, there were reported and observed delays in when people would receive that notification through a voice message.
“One of the lessons we’ve taken back is there needs to be some public messaging around getting people to sign up to receive text alerts or download the app so that they get the notification right away. And also build in the understanding that the voice message will take some time to work through third party telecommunication systems.”
Pinchbeck said the Cariboo Regional District heard back from people that were participating in the test is there is a hesitancy to answer a call from a 1-800 number which is how phone calls from their system were being received.
“That’s something we’re going to take back to the drawing board and see if it’s something we can resolve from our end and also do some public communications around with what phone number you can expect to receive the call from the CRD.”
We asked Pinchbeck how the Cariboo Regional District thought the test went.
“On the back end things were easy, streamlined, simple to work through on our side. On the public side notifications came through in an appropriate manner, as timely as they could with the systems considerations, and the feedback we got was very useful.”
Pinchbeck added that the CRD will be meeting as team in the next couple of days to debrief about how the test went and where we can tweak the system and how can tweak our public messaging about how the system works.
‘The one thing that we learned and the best thing people can do to make sure they’re getting notifications is to download the Voyent Alert App or to make sure that they’re signed up for text and email notifications,” Pinchbeck added.
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