With tornado warnings popping up in East Lambton County last evening, some residents in Dresden were surprised when their telephone rang.
Dresden resident Wendy Vercauteren said her son answered the phone and a pre-recorded message told him there was a tornado warning in place.
“It was a Sarnia number,” she said. “We never registered for anything.”
Dresden resident Linda Malott said she had the same message left on her answering machine.
“It was the first time I have ever received one,” she said. “It was a pre-recorded message.”
The Sarnia Police Service said today they did in fact forward an Environment Canada tornado warning for East Lambton, issued at 6:58pm on Sunday, to 44,301 phone subscribers using a new system called MyCNN, Community Notification Network.
“This is the first time the system was used for an emergency in our area for a mass notification,” Sarnia police officials stated. “The notification advised recipients of a tornado warning and further advised the public to tune to their local radio station. Emergency notifications will always provide instructions to the public to tune to local radio for further details.”
Ron Smith, an IT specialist with the Sarnia Police, said some residents in Dresden could have received the calls as they “purchase the data that is extracted from what appears to be the white pages.
“While it covers Lambton County well, it also has a small sampling of nearby communities,” he said.
Smith said the Sarnia Police have people that self-register as well and these people live as far as Toronto and in Michigan.
“In the event of an emergency all people, no matter location get notified,” Smith said.
Const. Renee Cowell said the Chatham-Kent Police currently uses a telephone crime alert program to alert citizens of crimes in the area.
Cowell said she believes this program could be a good option for Chatham-Kent, and was going to forward the information to Chief Dennis Poole.
“I think it’s awesome,” Cowell said.
