‘Pleasing’ progress made with emergency phone alert

Chris Hawker.
Chris Hawker
The results of a Civil Defence test of its emergency mobile phone alert system were "much better this year", Chris Hawker says.

Mr Hawker, who is director of Emergency Management Otago, said it was "really pleasing" to see that "tremendous" progress had been made through Sunday evening’s emergency message test.

Last year’s late November test had aimed to reach about 30% of cellphone owners, and this year the aim was about 50%.

Mr Hawker said last year that the earlier response was a good first step but the results had been "a bit hit and miss".

At that stage, two Otago Daily Times night staff out of 12  with cellphones were able to receive the message.

Last night, of about a dozen staff with cellphones, almost half received the siren-like warning sound and the  safety  message between 6pm and 7pm, in what Mr Hawker said was a "very encouraging improvement" on the previous outcome.

His initial understanding of the overall response was similar to the ODT figures.

Two of the ODT staff receiving the alert encountered some technical problems: one person received the alert sound, only to find the printed message had disappeared before he could read it, and another found it slow to access follow-up information.

john.gibb@odt.co.nz

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