Boone County Office of Emergency Management seeks public opinion
COLUMBIA, Mo (KMIZ)
The Boone County Office of Emergency Management is looking to install new five new sirens for each of the next three years and improve the profile of its public alert services, Smart911 and RaveAlert. These new plans come after Boone County OEM sent out their new strategic plan for 2022-2024.
"We do a lot of researching and surveying to make sure that all of the areas that are populated in Boone County are going to have that outdoor warning siren coverage," said Sherril Gladney, Emergency management specialist at Boone County OEM. "Based on that research, Boone county finds that the installation rate of five a year for three years it will help them meet their goal of ensuring all areas have coverage."
Chris Kelly, deputy director with Boone County OEM, says they have a $150,000 budget to install five new warning systems for 2022. The locations for the systems are not set in stone, but they will have to consider power locations first before making a final decision.
The new plan will also help the community become more aware of the Smart 911 and Rave Alert services. There are free services that residents can find and sign up for on the Boone County OEM website that will make it easier for emergency crews to help.
With Smart911, a person can load photos and any extra information to help emergency crews with their emergency. The RaveAlerts allow someone to pick and choose what push or text alerts they want to see as it relates to weather, traffic, or emergencies.
"It's very tailored. You can choose what you would like to hear about and what things you might not necessarily want to be notified about. That can come over your cellphone, either by text or voice and emails as well," said Gladney.
Gladney added that they want to be transparent with the community and giving the community a chance to comment is a way to do that.
"We know internally what our mission and our goals are in order to make our community more resilient in the face of disaster, we've wanted to include our citizens make them more aware of what we do, what we offer and ways they can partner to get this mission accomplished and goals accomplished"
To achieve this transparency, Boone County OEM is asking individuals to fill out the feedback form on its website before December 10th. It can be found on their homepage
Gladney says the finalized plan will be ready to go by the start of 2022 once it get reviewed.
