Phillips County Sheriff reminds county residents of Reverse 911 service

It has been nearly 18 months since the Phillips County Sheriff’s Office installed the Emergency Notification System (ENS) and thankfully it has only been used a few times.

Last summer the ENS was used to inform Phillips County residents of the flooding in the area, according to Sheriff Scott Moran. Moran said that in that instance he was able to draw a map within the system of where the flooding was taking place , pinpoint people living inside the danger zone and push a single button to call all of the people signed up for the service.

The ENS acts as a Reverse 911 type system that allows dispatchers to have the ability to mass notify citizens by pre-established and customized zones, of pending natural disasters, public safety warnings/notifications, and Amber type alerts for missing persons.

“Not only do different parts of the county have their own zones,” said Moran, “but we can also do it manually to just pick out certain people.”

The system is computer based and allows dispatchers at the Sheriff’s Office to type a message that will be delivered to residential and cell phones with a digitally generated voice, Sheriff Moran said.

The message will start as soon as it detects a human voice on the other end. If there is no answer, the call will cycle around once and attempt calling again after a short period of time. If an answering machine picks up the call the message will be delivered only once.

“The only problem we have is people who have a ring-back tone,” said Sheriff Moran, speaking of a phone feature that allows the caller to listen to music during the lag time when the person being called answers their phone. “The computer recognizes that as a voice and the person might miss the message while it is playing.”

Residential phones will be called first, and all residential phones are already in the system, the sheriff said.

If you do not have a residential phone and only a cell phone, list that number in both the residential and cell phone blocks, he said.

Phillips County citizens can self-register their cell phone by going to https://centurylinkmt.onthealert.com. Once a user has signed up through the website, a confirmation email will be sent to the address given. The final step is to click the link sent from the website and confirm that you want to use the service.

“Caller ID will appear as 406-758-9919, but you cannot call it back,” the sheriff added.

Upon receiving an Emergency Notification Message,” do not call the Sheriff’s Office” unless it is vital information concerning the current emergency, the sheriff emphasized.

“Dispatch phone lines are quickly clogged and overwhelmed preventing the notification of emergency responders. Please tune in to KMMR for updates, and the termination of any emergency alert,” the sheriff added.

The ENS internet dependent and will become inoperable should the electrical power or web go down, said Moran.

The ENS is a tool that can be used to make notifications and possibly save lives, but do not depend solely on this tool for emergency notifications, or personal safety decisions, he said.

Dispatch can only accurately relay the information that is given to them.

There is a cost to the Sheriff’s Office each time the ENS is used and Sheriff Moran said that it is not used in a fickle manner (to announce a community spaghetti feed or the like.) The cost of using the system in an emergency situation comes directly from the Sheriff’s Office funds.