Halton’s emergency broadcasting system tested tonight

If superstorm Sandy hit Oakville, what kind of shape are they in to handle it?

That’s the question the region of Halton is asking itself. The region is testing a new notification system tonight, that will automatically alert Halton residents, of a pending emergency. 1400 homes in Burlington, Oakville, Milton, and Halton Hills will be contacted by a new automated service designed to provide fast warning in any emergency.

The system is connected to a command centre at regional headquarters, where all necessary services can be co-ordinated from a single location. Coordinator Nick Buczynsky says emergency officials can automatically send things like evacuation alerts to 10,000 residents at a time while they co-ordinate emergency services.

“The regional emergency operations centre is here to support our site personnel, who would be dealing with a major incident. You’d be thinking something along the lines of a train derailment, major fire, or evacuations; we’re here to support them.”

“It’s an automated telephone call out service, and if we had an area that was impacted, say there was a major fire and there was smoke drifting across a neighbourhood and is potentially hazardous; what we would do is selected the area on a map, it’s a computer based application, record our message, and the calls would start going out to the residents in the affected area.”

Halton region wants to make sure that you are getting the message – so it’s important that if you get a call this evening, be sure to answer it – and don’t hang up. That way the region will be able to estimate how many homes were contacted, and how quickly.

The calls are to begin about 6:30, and should be completed by 8:30 tonight.

Video: Scot Urquhart reports: