The fallout from the 02/05/12 five alarm Mare Island fire has key contacts busy on multiple fronts. Vallejo Fire Chief Paige Meyer says that as soon as feasible an arson unit will investigate the root cause of the blaze. Additionally cadaver dogs will be dispatched to hunt for fatalities in the building wreckage.
Vallejo's crisis team is also responding to a number of Vallejo resident complaints that express concerns over the quality and timeliness of the advisory messages that many said came too late and from disparate sources. "It's a big concern that we have too", says Fire Chief Paige Meyer, who was very prompt in returning the Vallejo Community Issues Examiner request for an interview.
VCIE stands corrected
We appreciate that Meyer first wanted to correct our earlier posting's headline, which suggests that the Vallejo Fire Department (VFD) has full control of managing these communications. "Typically the department who manages the crisis create the content of these advisories" he explains. "In the case of Sunday's Mare Island fire, our Fire Department was in charge. But the distribution of the advisory was controlled by the Vallejo Police Department."
"We use CityWatch, a six phone line bank, to broadcast these advisories" says Vallejo Police Lieutenant Jim O'Connell. "When we realized that the automation queue was getting backed up, we asked the Sheriff's department (Solano County) to send out the advisory using their automated system."
Good intentions hit a speed bump
Their good intentions to disseminate emergency information took a ding when residents became confused by the subsequent VFD message that cancelled the alert formerly sent out by Solano County. It's a mishap that we can certainly learn from, says O'Connell. "We are beefing up our Facebook page (Vallejo Police Department). It makes a lot of sense to leverage such social media channels as Facebook, Twitter and Nixle, to broadcast emergency information. While we won't abandon directing these advisories to land-line phones, why not also send them to the platforms so many folks are now using to keep connected?"
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