The northern California county where a blaze called the Camp Fire caused such devastation four years ago has implemented an Alert FM system from Global Security Systems.
The notification system is now operational in Butte County.
Alert FM is intended to provide alerts for earthquake, tornado, hurricane, fire and other situations where early warning is important. It delivers alerts based on zone/polygon data from emergency officials, using the FM broadcasting infrastructure as its backbone.
“This platform provides multiple redundant backup FM radio transmitters connected by satellite to provide a secure transmission of a single point-to-multipoint messaging path, layered by ‘need to know’ groupings without utility power, cellular and internet point-of-failure vulnerabilities of other alerting systems,” GSS stated.
“Alert FM fills gaps for alerting where other solutions cannot deliver alerting to inaccessible cellular coverage areas and off-grid communities.”
Sheriff Kory Honea of the Butte County Sheriff’s Office was quoted in the announcement saying Alert FM “adds another tool in our toolbox to notify citizens and takes advantage of our zone alert strategy and provide a layer that works when cell, internet or power is not available.”
The text-based emergency notification system delivers encrypted polygon and group-based alerts to residents, schools, hospitals, commercial and industrial facilities. The company said these alerts give people time to take protective action.
GSS also quoted Dino Corbin, general manager and partner of Deer Creek Broadcasting, as expressing its involvement and support for the RDS-based system.