Local & State Headlines

Officials talk preparedness

• Local officials discuss community preparedness on the anniversary of 9/11.

Susan McCord

ALBANY — A new reverse-911 phone system will give Dougherty Countians a quicker heads up when an emergency arises, officials say.

The city of Albany has 14 sirens in a warning system for emergencies such as dangerous weather, but Jim Vaught, deputy director of Dougherty County’s Emergency Management Agency, says the reverse-911 system will be more effective at notifying residents.

“It goes out like a shotgun blast,” Vaught said, issuing 60,000 calls per hour to alter those with phones, handheld devices and pagers.

The Web-based system costs $25,000 a year for 100,000 minutes of calls, which may be targeted to phones in particular regions, he said.

The system can be preprogrammed to keep calling if a line is busy, or leave a message if nobody’s home, but it only calls phones established with local addresses, Vaught said.

Vaught made the comments at Albany and Dougherty County’s third joint prepardness meeting, which took place on the 6th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Officials from Dougherty EMA, law enforcement, Albany colleges and Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital attended the planning meeting hosted by the Albany Police Department. A fourth is planned for late October.

Dougherty’s emergency plan designates leadership and the nine agencies to provide certain services in the event of an emergency, Vaught said.

Albany Police Lt. Hosea Miller described the challenges to obtaining available state funds for disaster training.

Whether a “tabletop” or active drill, the exercises must be documented, reports done and multiple agencies involved to win grant funding, Miller said.

“It’s interesting to hear how other agencies are already in the planning of drills,” he said.

Dougherty EMA and health officials have slated a “pandemic” drill involving a health emergency later this year, Vaught said.

Describing Albany Technical College’s unique problems as a commuter campus with ambiguous boundaries, President Anthony Parker volunteered to host the next preparedness meeting.

Dougherty Assistant District Attorney Greg Edwards said the DA’s office already planned to host the forum in late October, which will include officials with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Albany State University Police Chief Roberson Brown said the first preparedness meeting, held at Albany State, was attended by about 100 people.

Spurred by shootings at Virginia Tech, the meetings were designed to get agencies working together and “involve everyone, from the inside out,” said Brown, who commands a force of 17 certified officers.

Working first among Dougherty agencies, the meetings will eventually involve other counties around the region, he said.

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