Clinton News Record, 2014-09-24, Page 22 News Record • Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Residents should be aware of Clinton's
two emergency alert systems
Tara Ostner
The Clinton News Record
It has been almost two
weeks since the shooting
near the Hullett Provincial
Wildlife Area north of
Clinton that left one man,
Don Frigo, from Caledon
East dead. The incident
understandably left many
people shaken and even
today some people are
confused about certain
events that took place fol-
lowing the incident.
People's various ques-
tions and concerns have
local emergency officials
as well as the municipality
of Central Huron thinking
about ways to prevent
similar confusion during
future crises. In particular,
they have decided that it is
important for local resi-
dents to be aware of two
different yet potentially
equally effective ways that
the public could be noti-
fied in the case of an
emergency.
The first way that emer-
gency officials can signify
an emergency is to issue
an emergency alert siren
which gives off a solid
tone, or wail, for three
minutes and then shuts
down for 30 seconds. This
cycle is then repeated two
more times for a total
siren cycle of ten minutes.
This is a unique siren and
Clinton is the only town in
the province to have such
an alert. The emergency
alert siren would be
sounded by the Central
Huron Fire Department.
According to acting fire
chief, Dave Renner, the
emergency alert siren has
only ever been used once
and that was strictly for
practice. Renner was also
careful to point out that
"the emergency alert siren
never sounded during the
recent shooting incident.
"We did have a call that
Saturday night at 7:40pm,"
Renner stated, "however,
the noises people heard
were the fire truck sirens."
These noises "had nothing
to do with the events in
the swamp," he said.
The second way that
emergency officials can sig-
nify an emergency is
through the Huron Ready
communication notifica-
tion system which sends
telephone notifications to
residents and businesses
within Huron County. This
system can be used to
inform the public of emer-
gencies, such as, crime pre-
vention and alerts, missing
children or persons, floods
and other natural disasters,
chemical spills, rabid or
dangerous animal alerts
and boil water advisories.
The Huron Ready commu-
nication notification sys-
tem also posts information
to their @HuronReady
Twitter account. Notifica-
tions through this system
can be issued 24 hours a
day for a single neighbour-
hood, one or more munici-
palities, a radius surround-
ing an incident, an area of
shoreline or the entire
county. Ultimately, the OPP
decides when the system
should or should not be
used. If it decides that it
should be used, the OPP
will then notify the relevant
Huron County employees.
According to OPP
officer, Jamie Stanley, the
system has been used on a
few occasions in the past
and is "one tool that we
can use."
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In order to benefit from
the Huron Ready commu-
nication notification sys-
tem, however, people
must register for it and the
county recommends that
all residents do so. People
who are interested in reg-
istering for this important,
free of charge system sim-
ply have to complete the
Huron Ready Community
Notification information
collection form which can
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emergman/prism.php.
Once the form is com-
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N7A 1M2, by fax to
519.524.5147 or by email
to huronready@huron-
county.ca.
According to Renner,
"only 46.3% of Huron
County residents are cur-
rently registered for the
system" and he encour-
ages more citizens to reg-
ister for it.
Mayor Jim Ginn also
encourages people to reg-
ister for it and points out
that his office has "sent
out numerous notices
about the system."
Despite the potential
usefulness of the Huron
Ready communication
notification system,
according to Stanley, the
system was not used in the
recent shooting incident.
"To the best of my knowl-
edge, it wasn't activated,"
Stanley said, and he could
not explain exactly why
this was the case.
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