HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2016-06-16, Page 7THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2016. PAGE 7.
County to pull out of Huron Ready program
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
Due to concerns regarding both
liability and unreliability, Huron
County is pulling out of the Huron
Ready program at its earliest
opportunity.
In a report presented to Huron
County Council at its June 8
committee of the whole meeting,
Jeff Horseman, Acting Chief of
Emergency Services, outlined his
reasons for wanting to exit the
program, which were echoed by
Chief Administrative Officer Brenda
Orchard.
The Huron Ready program, which
had previously been known as the
PRISM 911 program, has been in
operation since November, 2009 and
had been used to notify members of
the public of boil water advisories,
missing children/person, flood
events and natural disasters,
chemical spills, crime prevention
and alerts and dangerous animals, as
well as other approved emergency
messages.
Public expectation, Horseman
said, changed after the 2011 tornado
that ravaged Goderich and the
surrounding area in that both
members of the public and
councillors expected quick updates
on fast-moving weather events such
as tornadoes and severe
thunderstorms.
Even with the
mediums such as
inclusion of
Facebook and
Twitter, Horseman said the program
has proven to be incapable of
updating people in a way that meets
the expectations of the public.
The Huron Ready dialer program,
Horseman said, is outdated and is
beginning to fail due to its age.
"The current dialer program is
extremely complex to operate and
maintain and currently only one staff
resource is able to run the program,"
Horseman said in his report to
council. "Due to the complexity and
the problems with the system, staff
are trying to use work-arounds to
maintain the system:'
He told councillors that direct
sources such as Environment
Canada, the Ministry of
Transportation and the Ontario
Provincial Police are now able to
provide information in a faster and
more accurate manner, so the Huron
A great job
Young artists descended on the Brussels, Morris and Grey Community Pool on Saturday for
the Brussels Recreation Committee's Paint the Pail event. The artists were invited to put
personal touches on garbage bins that will be used in and around the Brussels, Morris and
Grey Community Centre, the Brussels baseball diamond, the pool and other recreation sites
in the village. Sports was a common theme for the pails as the Brussels Tigers and the
Brussels Skating Club, shown above, were represented. The Brussels Skating Club members
responsible for the paint job were, from left: Madison Koch, Camryn Logan, and Ally Barbour.
(Denny Scott photo)
Funding to our health care
system will increase
by over $1 billion this year.
Ready program should be
discontinued.
"At this time, it is not advisable to
fund a service that is being provided
by other organizations that are
considered the authoritative source.
Continuing to do so will increase the
liability to the county, should a
message be missed by the Huron
Ready system," Horseman said.
Warden Paul Gowing echoed
Horseman's statements, saying that
even if the Huron Ready program
was working in an effective manner,
only half of the population has opted
into the program by entering their
phone numbers to the system. This
means that under the best -case
scenario, Gowing said, only half of
the population is getting the alerts.
Orchard agreed, saying that the
problem runs even deeper because
there's no way to tell if people are
answering their phones or even still
at the same phone numbers they
provided well over five years ago.
Basically, Orchard said, if Huron
County, by way of the Huron Ready
program, is being relied upon as an
authoritative resource for alerts, and
it doesn't have the resources to be
that authoritative source, that then
leaves the county open to liability if
an alert is missed in the event of a
disaster.
The program will continue as is
until Oct. 1, 2016, when it will be
discontinued. As a result, Horseman
said, cost savings will be realized by
the county when phone lines held for
Huron Ready are released to
Information Technology (IT)
Services.
Council approved Horseman's
recommendation to discontinue the
program as soon as possible.
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