SPPD encourages all residents to sign up for VC Alert Reverse Notification

According to Ian Tausig, VC Alert coordinator for the Santa Paula Police Department, the emergency notification system may be used to deliver alerts when there is a threat to the health or safety of residents. This system will replace the existing Reverse 911^® system deployed in 2008.

Tausig noted that VC Alert has expanded ability to contact thousands of residents instantly via home telephone number, cellular telephone number, business telephone number, email address, text messaging, fax, and instant messaging, but that’s only if you sign up for the service. You can even choose the order in which the system should try their contact options.

And although signing up so called “landline” telephones - those at the home or office utilizing a phone line - is automatic, not so for unlisted numbers that must be registered by the account holder. Those who don’t want the service can opt out, but those that do sign up can also register to get non-emergency notices - alerts ranging from road and school closures to community events and crime trends.

The system will cover the county’s unincorporated areas and Santa Paula as well as Camarillo, Fillmore, Moorpark, Ojai, Oxnard, Port Hueneme, Thousand Oaks and Ventura. Tausig said numerous Santa Paulans already have received such emergency notifications in the past using the previous system.

Notices of mountain lion sightings and natural gas leaks, “any number of things,” have prompted reverse notifications. “We’ve even warned people to stay in their homes if we’re looking for a suspect” in their vicinity. 

The new VC Alert system “has a much larger capacity to send messages and the capability to send email, text or fax,” among other options. “We can send out alerts to everyone in the city, to one street or block - or even to one person.”