Reverse 911

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During an emergency, town officials want to get public safety information out as quickly and to as many people as possible.

Rochester communications supervisor Martha Swats says that’s why her city decided to invest in what's called a Reverse 9-1-1 system.

It’s called Reverse 9-1-1 because it enables town officials to contact residents about a public safety issue.

Swats says it only takes a few minutes to set up the system- record a short message, and pick which neighborhood to call.

The automated phone lines do the rest, calling up to 1800 phone numbers an hour.

Swats: “Say there’s a missing child . so you don’t want that. But private phone calls, won’t alert the person. So you choose the address the child was last seen, pick a 2 mile radius from that address, and the calls will start going out.”

Derry has had its system up for about a year.

And last May residents there got a lesson in how it works.

Police say 35 year old Charles Rawlings kidnapped and sexually assaulted a woman in Manchester.

He allegedly led police on a car chase back to Derry and then fled into the woods.

Police Captain Vernon Thomas says Derry used their Reverse 911 system to warn residents.

Thomas: “We sent out a message telling people that there may be a problem in their neighborhood, asking them to stay in their houses, keep their doors and windows locked and notify the police department if they saw anything unusual. And we sent it to the northern part of Salem and the southern part of Derry in that particular area.”

Residents spotted Rawlings in Salem and called police, who took Rawlings into custody.

Helping police is just one way the system can work.

Public works officials can warn residents to boil their water if a well is contaminated.

And schools can tell students about snow closings directly.

But some worry that too many automated messages could cause residents to tune out- or worse, hang up.

Captain Ernie Petrin supervises the Public Notification System for the Concord Fire Department.
Concord is just now setting up their system.

Petrin: “And we don’t want it overused, because people will just automatically hang up when they hear about it. Though we don’t want it underused either, so that when people hear it they don’t know what’s happening.”

Not every Reverse 911 system has been as successful, however.

Officials in Ipswich, Massachusetts activated their new reverse 911 system to warn residents the town was about to spray for mosquitos

But it malfunctioned and began calling the same numbers over and over, sometimes as many as fifteen times.

It had to be shut down before the entire town could be notified.

Even when it works, Reverse 911 can cost tens of thousands of dollars to set up and thousands more each year to maintain.

Rochester and Concord each paid for their systems with federal grant money, but towns without grants might find the system too costly.

And Captain Thomas of Derry Police says new technologies, such as cell phones and internet-phone systems, aren’t always compatible with Reverse 911.

Thomas: “Cell phones aren’t attached to a particular address, and as I say, this is based on geographics. If someone only has a cell phone there’s a possibility we might not be able to reach them even if they live in that geographical area.”

But officials agree the system doesn’t have to be perfect to be useful. Captain Ernie Petrin says Concord will use Reverse 911 along with more traditional methods of public notification. That way, they can reach as many residents as possible during an emergency.

Rochester, Lebanon, and Derry already have a Reverse 911 system up and running.

Concord expects to have its system on line by November.

For NHPR News, I’m Brady Carlson.