A case study evaluating the use of the alerting system Reverse 911 during the Colorado fires. Was it effective?

Alerting System Reverse 911
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Reverse 911 is a registered trademark of a communications company known as Cascadian, an organization used by the United States to communicate to people in defined geographical region. In 1960, this telephone company began dispatching systems for telephones (Strawderman et al., 2012). This system makes calls for the appropriate agency for public safety, such as Police, Emergency Management, Public Health, Fire and Sheriff. It is designed to notify the affected area of any emergency by sending a message through the phone system (Strawderman et al., 2012). In the wake of the Colorado fires, Cassidian pointed out that there are other telephone notification systems out there, which are said to have failed. Whether it is sharing general information or warning people of potential hazards this emergency notification service facilitates effective and fast communication within the public. The application, which is nationally acclaimed, combines technologies of database and mapping, and they enable operations by the military, enforcement of the law, fire/EMS, and managing emergency. It helps in identifying visually and alert people automatically in certain geographical locations (Chandler, 2010). The aim of this research paper is to analyze Reverse 911 alerting system, find out if it is effective and if not, find out why it is not effective.
This paper will analyze this alerting system using the Colorado Wildfires. First, I will look at the most recent one, that of 2012. Authorities acknowledged that twelve percent of the people affected by this fire never got the Reverse 911 call giving them a warning to evacuate. A misconception about this notification system left some fire evacuees from Waldo Canyon waiting for the emergency call that never came (The gazette, 2012). Some people had already parked and were waiting for the emergency call telling them to evacuate. This misconception is that, if your landline has been listed, there is no need to register for this emergency call. This is not the case because some landlines are automatically listed in the Reverse 911 database, but some do not make it there. The spokesperson of this agency said they were trying to understand why some of the numbers do not make it to the database, and they are doing so by analyzing some of these numbers. However, he recommended that everyone should ensure that he registers his telephone number.
Additionally, some article authors believe that the Colorado wildfire deaths should be blamed on the malfunction of the system. The Reverse 911 calls worked in the 2012 Colorado fire but were not completely effective. The reason for this conclusion is that, if the system worked properly then it should have notified everyone in that area, but it did not. However, the blame can also be transferred to the public because it would be easier to communicate with everyone using cell phones but most of the cell phones are not regi...