Lincoln County will test emergency notification system on Monday

Lincoln County has scheduled its yearly countywide test of its emergency notification systems from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday, June 24.

The Sheriff’s Office plans to test all components of the Lincoln Alerts emergency notification system in preparation for summer wildfire conditions, said emergency manager Jenny Demaris. A focus of the systems test will be on the Lincoln Alerts mobile application and the how easy it might be of getting information back from people who received the message.

The county recently updated its Lincoln Alerts sign-up website page to include three easy to follow user guides. The guides are intended to outline the steps needed to sign-up for Lincoln Alerts, download the mobile app and sign up for the community keyword text messages. The user guides can be found at the Lincoln Alerts page at www.co.lincoln.or.us/alerts.

The sheriff’s office said Lincoln County residents can participate in the test in the following ways:

Before June 24:

• If you have not already done so, create a Lincoln Alerts profile for each member of your household;
• Update your current opt-in profiles to make sure your contact information and addresses are up to date;
• Download the mobile app and login after first setting up a Lincoln Alerts account.

During the June 24 test:

• Confirm the Lincoln Alerts test message on any of the devices in your profile or your residential or business landline phones.
• Confirm the mobile app message and send back a photo through the mobile app to County Emergency Management confirming the ability to communicate to public safety officials during emergency events;
• Monitor local radio and digital media during the test to confirm you received a notification through an alternative source.

After the test participants are asked to complete the on-line survey to provide feedback.

Emergency management officials said they have several redundancies in place to push out messages to people who may be in danger due to emerging or imminent disaster situations. The countywide test allows managers to test all features together just as it would be in a real disaster response situation.

Those features include: a message over local public radio systems, alerts to local media partners, Lincoln Alerts to opt-in profiles and to residential and business landline numbers, a message for mobile app users, a Lincoln Alerts message to community information “keyword” subscribers, and posting an emergency notification banner on the county’s website.

“Having the ability to test all of our emergency notification features and receive feedback from those we communicate to is incredibly important,” Demaris said in a news release. “It provides us a way to evaluate our systems, improve upon our processes and ensure we are ready when our communities need us.”