Advisory Boil Water Notice Reveal’s Glitch in City Emergency Notification System – Only Citizens Who Previously Signed Up for Notices Were Called

                                Emergency notification list of 784 in city with population of 7,210           

By Pauline Masson –

A major break in a city water main early Tuesday morning that emptied reservoirs and reduced water pressure prompted the city to send an advisory boil water notice to some citizens – but not all.

The city has a rule that citizens have to sign up, or officially ask, to be put on the city notification call list in order to be notified by phone of an emergency. They can sign up on the city’s web page. Any citizens who do not enroll will not be notified.

A boil water is seen as precautionary not a boil water order where, DNR requires public water systems, such as Pacific, to notify citizens as soon as possible, and by the most effective methods, this week’s water main  break was a a wake up call to some citizens. If you’re not on the city list for a boil water order or any other emergency, you will not be notified on the city’s robocall system.

A boil water advisory (like the one Public Works Commissioner Robert Brueggemann called for) is a precautionary measure when there is concern that a problem with drinking water may exist. This usually occurs after a major water main breaks or other low-pressure events like the one experienced in Pacific Tuesday morning.

Mr. Brueggemann reported that the break occurred in Blackburn reservoir at about 3:10 a.m. Monday and quickly emptied the reservoir, which holds seven feet of water, down to one foot of water. By 5:30 a.m. he was able to get the main valves off and isolate the leak and begin repairs.

City water pressure is derived from the Blackburn reservoir, which caused the pressure in some areas to drop below 20 psi. Because the pressure drop was pretty wide spread, Mr. Bruggemann said he issued a boil water advisory across the city. 

“I contacted all necessary personnel, the fire district, school district, DNR,” he said. “I was able to get the information out in the regroup message online.”

In either a boil water order or a boil water advisory – according to the DNR web page –  public water providers are required to notify citizens, not just citizens who have signed up ahead of time to be alerted to an emergency

Alderman Debbie Kelley said the policy of requiring citizens to enroll in a notification process was a new policy that was put in place in recent years and eliminates certain citizens from receiving the notice  –  especially older citizens, some of whom do not have computers or email.

Speaking at the Aug. 19 board of aldermen (BOA) meeting, Miss Kelley said it is important to make sure all citizens know that they have to sign up to get on the call list.

She said in the past all citizens were notified of an emergency and many citizens may not know they have to request to have their name and phone number added to the notification list.

“Some of our citizens, especially senior citizens, do not have computers and don’t have access to email,” she said.

DNR web site notes that senior citizens are among the most vulnerable, along with small children, to water borne illnesses.

Alderman Karla Stewart also questioned the reliability of the requirements for citizens to sign up to receive the robocalls.

“What about people who don’t have email,” she said. “It does allow for email, phone number or both.” But how do they get on the list?

Emergency Management Director Hal Schulman said that if citizens telephoned him he would add their contact info to the list.

Two former officials said the failure to notify all citizens of the boil advisory was a flawed  policy that needed to be remedied.

Former city administrator Harold Selby said he had read about the boil water advisory notice in Pacific and was alerted that everyone did not receive the notice.

“This is really easy to fix. And it wouldn’t be the first time we did something like this,” he said “The city could hang door hangers on every door in the city. In the apartment buildings where there are multiple tenants it would go pretty fast.”

Former Mayor Herb Adams said he was not aware when the requirement for citizens to enroll in the notification program in order to receive emergency notification calls was put in place.

“But in any case, the robo calls should not be the only method used to notify citizens that they need to boil water,” he said. “This is a health issue, an emergency issue. Even if they have to go door to door, every citizen has to be notified.”

Mr. Adams said during an earlier tenure as mayor he had the good luck to have Diane Becker as emergency management director. “When anything happened she telephoned me immediately and said, ‘This is what happened. This is what we are doing.’ She often went door to door to check on citizens.”

“The city needs a current emergency plan to deal with recurring emergencies,” he said. “Boil water orders or advisories are not the only type of recurring emergencies in our city – floods, train derailments, extreme weather, and road closures occur here. People have to be notified.”

Mr. Adams also stressed that emergency notification is not the responsibility of the aldermen.

“They only have authority to act on behalf of the city twice a month when they are in a board meeting,” he said. ” The departments that should be dealing with this are the people in charge of day to day operations, the staff that operates the emergency call system, public works department, emergency management, the mayor, and maybe the police and fire departments.”

“They need to assess the threat and devise a plan to notify everyone who needs to be notified,” Mr. Adams said.

Mr. Adams added that he had once tried to get a fourth siren tower where weather alerts are voiced as another way the city could notify citizens of an emergency, such as need to boil water.   

The city contracts with ReGroup to issue the notifications, Ms.Barfield said.

At at 5:35 a.m. on the morning of the water pipe break, ReGroup had sent 682 emails, 668 texts, 444 voice calls. by 4:38 that afternoon ReGroup had sent 748 emails, 736 texts.

Because the numbers of emails and texts were so similar Hometown Matters asked if it was possible that there were duplicates, that some people received email and text alerts of the same message. Miss Barfield said the staff was unsure if they could identify if there were duplicates. 

When asked if there was an official policy that citizens had to sign up in order to be notified of an emergency – and if there was an official city policy was it done with or without alderman approval – she said she is researching those questions.

Mr. Adams concluded that the notification program needs to be revamped to include all citizens in any emergency notification.

“If someone who was not notified to boil their water gets sick because of the water it could be a real problem for the city,” he said. “They absolutely need to fix it.”

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Amber alerts regarding kidnapped children and National Weather alerts anouncing extreme weather go to every phone in the area of the emergency. Citizens do not have to enroll, or sign up, in order to receive the telephone alerts.

Author: paulinemasson

Pauline Masson, editor/publisher. View all posts by paulinemasson