By Susan Redden
sredden@joplinglobe.com
The first use of Jasper County’s new reverse 911 system was a learning experience, according to Rich Nordell, executive director of the Jasper County Emergency Services Board.
The system was activated about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday with a message from Webb City police, who were trying to locate a woman who had walked away from her home.
The woman returned home late Tuesday, according to Teague Braker, communications supervisor with the Webb City Police Department.
He said the 46-year-old woman, who suffers from a brain injury, “came back on her own after spending time in the woods.”
Nordell said the reverse 911 system was used to call 925 telephones in the area of northeast Webb City, northwest Carterville and southeast Oronogo, in a three-mile area around the location where woman was last seen.
He said the calls took about 1 1/2 hours to make because the alert went out over the 16 telephone lines available to the county’s 911 emergency communications center. The county had an agreement with the reverse 911 vendor to be able to route calls through the company’s system, where 2,000 telephone lines are available.
“We tried to use their mass lines, but it didn’t work because of a configuration problem,” Nordell said. “They’ve fixed it, and I’m glad we found it before we were trying to use it for a tornado warning or a hazardous-materials spill.”
Had the center been able to use the vendor’s lines, the 53-second message “would have gone out once, over 925 lines,” he said.
Of the 925 calls, 262 were answered by someone who listened to the entire message, 375 went to answering machines and 119 went unanswered, Nordell said. The system recorded a busy signal on 15, tones for a fax machine on 42, and messages for a disconnected or invalid telephone number on 63.
Nordell said he was disappointed by the number of people who hung up, midmessage.
“It may be that people aren’t familiar with the system, but it could involve someone they know,” he said.
Braker said the Webb City department received a number of calls from people questioning the alert calls, but they did not provide any information on the location of the woman, who he said had walked away from her house on earlier occasions.
The new system began operations in early June. It allows residents to be notified by telephone either countywide or in a specific geographic area of information ranging from a hazardous-materials spill to severe weather to problems with water or sewer service.
The system is housed in the Jasper County 911 building. It is shared by the county and the city of Joplin, and replaces outdated systems owned by each entity. The system was purchased for nearly $36,000, with $20,000 of the initial price coming from the Jasper County Commission. The commission first looked at buying storm sirens for weather alerts in rural towns that had no warning system, then decided reverse 911 would be a better alternative. An additional $2,000 was paid by the Local Emergency Planning Committee, with the Jasper County Emergency Services Board paying remaining costs. Joplin and the county board will share continuing costs after the first year.
Registration
Residents with traditional land-line telephones already are part of the system that links phone numbers with geographic addresses. Cellular-telephone numbers can be registered for the system via the Web sites of the Joplin Police Department and the Jasper County Emergency Services Board.
