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Pikes Peak region experiences significant increase in Peak Alert interest

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- According to the El Paso-Teller County 911 Authority, the region set a record last year with 22,000 new sign-ups to the Peak Alert system that warns of evacuations and other emergencies.

El Paso-Teller County 911

"Normally, we have 4,000 to 8,000," said Authority spokesman Ben Bills. "That's more than we had during the Waldo Canyon Fire in 2012. We have around 87,000 total households. But there are more than 700,000 households in the region, so there's still room for improvement."

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Bills said that the authority doesn't track data regarding why people register, but two likely motivators are: Several fires that forced evacuations in the city last spring; and the implementation of the new Zonehaven software in August which separates the city into more than 600 zones to pinpoint and better manage emergency alerts to the public.

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"We've just started an effort to try and determine what percentage of people in the highest-risk wildfire areas have signed up," Bills said.

The Authority uses the Zonehaven grid as one of several tools to notify citizens; officials want to avoid the heavy traffic congestion and dangerous evacuation delays as residents from the Mountain Shadows neighborhood -- where nearly 300 homes were destroyed -- rushed to flee the flames during Waldo Canyon.

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However, the community group Westside Watch said that city leaders should have done more to prepare for the software switch.

"We don't have anything against Zonehaven," said group member Dana Duggan. "More tools are better. But in these dire fires -- which is the concern, that's when everybody's got to go and they've got to go fast -- the cell towers go down in every single one, frankly, (that) we've looked at. Zonehaven relies on real-time data, and that's great. But when you lose communications, it confuses everyone."

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She also said that city officials ignored a request from critics to base evacuations on computer modeling (simulations), as well as to create and distribute maps that point out the best escape routes.

"Maps would be a big help, especially for all the tourists we have who aren't familiar with our streets," Duggan said.

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Bills doesn't think that burned cell towers, or other infrastructure damage, will significantly affect communications.

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"I'm confident that our emergency management folks and public safety officials knew that if an impending disaster even had the risk of coming this way, we could have messages moving before it started destroying infrastructure, would be my hope."

Bills said that communications more likely would be interrupted by evacuees flooding phone lines or electricity being shut off in an area.

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"When you consider that three of every four phones are cell phones, that's a lot of bandwith that can be sucked up instead of being used to send or receive alerts," he said. "That's a serious concern. So, we ask people to sign up for those Peak Alerts because you can choose five locations and get the alerts via phone, text or email."

For more information, visit: http://elpasoteller911.org/.

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Scott Harrison

Scott is a reporter for KRDO. Learn more about Scott here.

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