County moves forward with alert system

County officials are moving forward with implementing an emergency notification system that they believe will enhance communication in the event of an emergency.

During the Lorain County Board of Commissioners meeting Nov. 5, Tom Kelley, director of Emergency Management Agency and Homeland Security, announced that through the Homeland Security Advisory Committee, the county has partnered with Inspiron, of Akron, to make the emergency notification system available across the county.

The contract, approved by the commissioners in July, will cost the county $36,350 a year, expiring in July 2017.

Kelley said the emergency alert system, known as WENS (Wireless Emergency Notification System), will send out text, voice and email messages, in connection with social media, to police, fire departments, municipal governments and county residents.

Each of the entities will be required to sign agreements which set out conditions under which messages can be dispersed to those who sign up to receive alerts.

In explaining how the system works, Kelly said that in the instance of a boil alert for a specific area, the WENS will allow him to draw a circle on a map and have an emergency alert sent to a particular community as opposed to the message being simultaneously sent to all eight counties.

“We’re in the process of speaking with WENS’ IT department to make it possible for people to click on a link on our website to sign-up for the system,” Kelley said. “We’re pretty happy with the agreement and are ready to go with this.”

Costing five cents per person per community to sign up for the system, Commissioner Lori Kokoski said the cost to utilize the system is very reasonable compared to other emergency alert systems on the market today.

“It’s five cents a head for each community to buy into the system which is very inexpensive,” Kokoski said. “I’m looking forward to seeing how this is all going to work.”

There are 42,000 landline numbers ready to go into the system, Kelly said.

The emergency alert system will be operational by Jan. 1, 2015. It is set to be administered by the Lorain County 911 Call Center.

In other business, commissioners voted to approve two requests for $50,000 from the Juvenile Accountability Discretionary Block Grant to purchase four cellular/GPS electronic monitors and continue the Juvenile Detention Home’s Success for Youth court program.

The funds sought will help facility officials better monitor area youth offenders while decreasing the number of detainees at the detention home, the ordinance states.

The grant money also will be used to continue the detention home’s Success for Youth program which provides case management services, intensive court supervision, educational support and development of social and job readiness skills to offenders in collaboration with Catholic Charities.

The requests for the detention home ask for $5,555 in matching funds from the county’s general fund.