What Quarter Of Malibu Are You In? Test Next Month
Written by 991KBU on August 29, 2018
The City of Malibu’s tests next month of its Disaster Notification System.
Malibu has been divided into four sections … one section will be tested each week in September.
Western Malibu first … that’s from Bonsall Drive west.
Then Western Central Malibu … the Point Dume and Paradise Cove areas.
Eastern Central Malibu in the third week … that’s from abiout Corral Canyon to the Civic Center and lagoon.
Then … Eastern Malibu will be tested in the fourth week.
But the Malibu evacuation system relies heavily on people registering their cellphones.
More than half of households in Malibu don’t have a functioning landline … and many people ignore incoming calls due to the proliferation of junk sales pitches.
Phone calls to cellphones, and especially text messages, go out through the system much faster than landline emergency calls … and go out first.
Malibu has a population of nearly 13,000 … but only 3,600 have registered their cell phones in the system.
You can register your cellphone by going to the city’s webpage … Malibu City dot org slash disasternotifications — that’s all one word.
Or … go to the KBUU Newswire where we have the links.
That’s at RadioMalibu.net.
LINK TO REGISTER: www.MalibuCity.org/DisasterNotifications
MAP SHOWING MALIBU TEST SECTIONS: https://www.malibucity.org/emergency.
The City of Los Angeles is failing to adequately warn its residents of emergency evacuations from fires.
That’s according to a scathing report from the city’s controller … as reported in the Los Angeles Times.
Less than 5 percent of the people in Los Angeles have enrolled in the Notify-L-A system … which will alert cellphones or social media accounts to emergencies…. but only if they have signed up for the notices.
The report calls for the city’s police and fire departments to use NotifyLA in large-scale emergencies so the public knows where to find vital information, and isn’t left guessing.
The city of L-A can use the federal Wireless Emergency Alert system … W-E-A.
The city of Malibu is also getting W-E-A capability … L-A County already covers Malibu with W-E-A capability as well.
W-E-A transmits Amber Alert-style messages through cellphone towers to all phones in a designated area.
It depends on electricity functioning at the cell transmission sites …. somethign that is not always reliable anymore.
The L-A Times notes that officials have hesitated to use W-E-A alarms because they reach more phones than officials intend to reach, and because the messages have to be short.
44 people were killed in the Santa Rosa fires … as officials decided not to trigger W-E-A alarms lest they clog evacuation routes.
Leaders in Santa Barbara County were equally concerned about using the alerts before mudslides buried Montecito in January. … 22 killed then.
