Sirens Helpful But Inadequate in Rural Emergencies

Mountain View, California residents will soon have access to an emergency communications system very similar to the services of Communications Made Easy. The reason we point out this story is because the leaders of this city realize that technology offers huge advantages and public address system sirens are often not effective.

"If we needed to call everybody tonight we could do it," said fire department spokesman Lynn Brown, referring to the ability of the city's public safety departments to call publicly listed phone numbers. They will no longer need to rely on their sirens, which were installed during the Cold War era in case of a nuclear attack. "If you set off a siren today nobody would know what it was for," Brown said.

Sirens and other types of community-wide warning systems are great for the people that can hear them. But unfortunately, their range is limited and the expense to install them prohibits rural fire districts and townships from placing them near every home. People who live outside of the city limits often have to rely on their own awareness and TV or radio to be informed of an emergency.

That's why emergency broadcasts via voice message and text message is so valuable to those rural districts. Public safety is one of the reasons government exists, and cell phones make it possible to enhance this important function. We encourage you to embrace it!

Article quoted was written by Daniel DeBolt and appears at in the Mountain Valley Voice, http://www.mv-voice.com/news/show_story.php?id=1121