Provo City has been working for the past few months to perfect CityWatch, a reverse 911 emergency notification system, and it is now ready for use.

“This is the Provo City Police Department with an important message,” residents will hear on their phones in emergency situations.

“The system will be used in very limited circumstances such as evacuations or other emergencies,” said Helen Anderson, Provo City community relations and public information officer. “People don’t have to worry about calls about special events or other promotions. The system is used strictly for public safety.”

CityWatch enables the city’s Emergency Dispatch Center to make thousands of calls at the same time to notify residents of a public emergency.

According to city officials, the system only calls listed and unlisted land line phones. However, cell phones that are registered can be called.

“We hope to work with BYU to get the word out of the need to register cell phones,” Anderson said. “I think most students rely on their cell phones, so they need to register in order to receive notifications.”

Instructions about what to do in case of an emergency and other information will be included in the CityWatch notification, so it is important to listen to the entire message.

City officials say residents will be asked to press a button after the introduction to proceed, and at the end of the message to confirm that all information was heard.

“If at the end of the message the resident has not pushed the button, the system will assume that the message was not heard and will call the resident back,” Anderson said. “This helps the residents make sure that it is not a solicitation call.”

In a Provo City Council meeting, questions were asked about who made the decision to use CityWatch.

“In any public safety situation there is an incident commander, usually it is the first person on the scene,” Anderson said. “That incident commander makes the decision.”

So far, the system has been used for at least one or more missing person alerts.

The system was also used to contact emergency respondents in January when three hikers were stranded on Y mountain. CityWatch notified the Utah Highway Patrol to send a helicopter to rescue the hikers.

“We haven’t had any huge emergencies yet, so that is why the public hasn’t received a notification yet,” Anderson said. “But the system is ready for any emergency that might come up in the future.”

Those who are interested in registering should go to www.provo.org

Copyright Brigham Young University 10 Mar 2009