Spring Grove considering new alert system

From the Tuesday, July 15, 2008 edition of the Northwest Herald:

Spring Grove considering new alert system
By DIANA SROKA - dsroka@nwherald.com

SPRING GROVE – Village officials are considering a community alert system with the ability to contact residents by voice, or text and e-mail messages during weather emergencies.

Residents complained that they didn’t hear emergency sirens during last month’s storms, so as a possible solution, Trustee Jim Anhalt arranged for a provider company to demonstrate the system at Tuesday’s board meeting.

Anhalt said during last month’s storms that he could not hear the siren at his home, too.

“The siren by us is no more than a quarter mile away, but because of the wind direction, most people didn't hear it,” Anhalt said. “If we had a tornado, we would have been wiped out, and people wouldn't have known about it.”

The company giving the demonstration, Connect-CTY, already provides service to Barrington Hills, Wauconda and Antioch.

The alert service is for emergency use only, said Natasha Rabe, a spokesperson with Connect-CTY. Phone numbers will not be sold to telemarketers, and the village will not use them for any other purpose.

“[The phone numbers] are only available to key government officials in the area, and they can only use it to send information that’s in the public interest,” Rabe said.

She also said residents who wished to submit their cell phone numbers could receive emergency messages by text message, a technique that sometimes is used to disseminate emergency alerts on college campuses.

Anhalt said he looked forward to the presentation and hoped residents would attend.

“Within a couple minutes, everybody in Spring Grove would be notified,” Anhalt said. “I think it's a small investment that would hopefully make us safer.”

Anhalt said the cost would be about $2.50 a house a year, and he estimated Spring Grove had about 2,500 homes within its borders. At 2,500 homes, the cost would be $6,250 annually.