At a news conference Tuesday morning, Greater Sudbury rolled out Sudbury Alerts, its new system for alerting the public in case of a crisis.
The city bought the Everbridge system through a funding agreement with Vale and plans to implement it at the end of March. It makes uses of a number of platforms – email, desktop alerts, text messages, etc. – to alert Sudburians in case there's an incident that presents a threat to public safety.
Greater Sudbury Mayor Brian Bigger said Monday that they needed to enhance their capability to inform residents in case of an emergency "considered an imminent threat to public safety.
"This initiative is called Sudbury Alerts," Bigger said at Tom Davies Square. "It's one more tool the city has to notify residents and ensure public safety.
The system will send residents emergency evacuation notices, shelter instructions, safety information and other information to people who register their email address, cellphone number, home phone number, fax number, TTY service number.
"I, along with Greater Sudbury council, have no greater responsibility to our community than to keep our citizens safe," Bigger said. "Which is why we value the importance today of planning for tomorrow."
"In order to maximize this service, I would encourage everyone who has a phone, email address or fax number to sign up at www.greatersudbury.ca/sudburyalerts."
CAO Ed Archer said the system allows anyone who registers to include several locations around the city where they would like to receive an emergency notification.
"For instance, if you have children in school in Lively, but you work in Garson and you live in Copper Cliff, you can input all three addresses in Sudbury Alerts," Archer said.
"That means, if an emergency occurs at your children's school while you're at work, you'll be notified. It doesn't matter if you're in the area. If it affects an area you've identified, you'll get a notification.
"We encourage residents to register their home phones, cellphones and email addresses to ensure we can reach them when they tell us we need to."
Greater Sudbury Police Chief Paul Pedersen said responding to emergencies is a core function of police, who receive more than 50,000 emergency calls a year for police and ambulance service.
"This program will exponentially increase our ability to alert the citizens about a crisis in real time," Pedersen said. "This is a fantastic example of what can happen when public and private agencies work together to make our community safer."
“Vale is pleased to support this important mass notification system that will improve emergency preparedness in our community,” Stuart Harshaw, vice-president of Vale’s Ontario operations said in a news release. “We encourage everyone to sign up, get notified and be prepared.”
Everbridge produced this video to explain how their system works.
Residents or businesses who don't want to get notifications can opt out. And anyone whose contact information isn't listed in the White and Yellow Pages will have to register on the city's website.
A test of the system will take place in May, during Emergency Preparedness Week, with the system up and running sometime after that.
