Editorial: Search ‘high’ and ‘low’

Thursday, 02 February 2012 01:00

To prevent a repeat of the town's emergency communication failures during two lengthy and massive power outages last year, town officials have thankfully begun to work on fixing the flaws.

Officials admitted this week that there were significant problems in the town's emergency responses to the two major storms in 2011 that knocked out power to nearly all homes in Lewisboro — for up to a week at some. On Monday, the Town Board discussed the Emergency Management Committee, its mission and structure, with the goal of correcting those problematic areas.

Some of the improvements under consideration include creating and dispersing magnetized refrigeration cards with relevant emergency information; developing a more comprehensive list of vulnerable residents; equipping vehicles with loudspeakers and using radios stations and the postal mail system to dispense information; and creating emergency information bulletin boards in shopping centers.

In addition to these "low-tech" options, town officials should also consider a "high-tech" one — using the increased cellular communications in Lewisboro — to connect to residents. Last year during both outages, many residents used their smartphones to view news alerts and regularly updated storm stories from The Ledger to keep them informed regarding the outages; where to shower and find food, dry ice and water; what stores were open; where to charge electronic devices, etc. Cell service often remains working even when the power is out for prolonged periods of time. And with the burgeoning market of smartphones, and the proliferation of cell towers in Lewisboro, many residents either already have access to their email and the Internet during power outages or will in the near future.

Town officials can capitalize on this by using its own existing email list to send out news alerts to residents' cell phones to keep them posted about emergency developments. And they can grow this list to include more of the town by making regular announcements about it at televised town meetings, stressing to residents the importance of joining it.

This coupled with the board members' good "low-tech" suggestions should ensure markedly improved communications following the next emergency.