Portage residents can expect a test alert from the City of Portage la Prairie’s alert system on Tuesday, May 13th at 2 p.m.
Colin Doyle, chair of the city’s public safety committee, says Connect Portage is the city’s communication platform designed to alert residents of emergencies.
“The test message will be distributed via e-mail or text for mobile devices or through a voice message on landlines,” Doyle explains.
The system aims to quickly reach residents with vital information in situations that require immediate public action or awareness.
“Connect Portage is a mass communication system that allows the city to send out important information with regards to severe weather, tornadoes, train derailments and other emergencies. Anything where the public would require direction or support from the city,” said Doyle. “This is the scheduled test of the system, but in the event of an actual emergency, we would use this to contact residents and provide that further information.”
Doyle adds the alert will not resemble the loud national emergency alerts often sent through provincial or federal systems. Instead, it will come through as a standard notification or automated voice message.
All listed landline numbers in the city’s white pages will receive the message, including businesses. However, residents with mobile phones must sign up manually.
“Anyone who's in the white pages has agreed to publicly publish your phone number, so those ones will be automatically done. It's the mobile devices that people need to actually sign up for, because mobile numbers are not public information,” Doyle explained.
Residents can register their mobile number on the city’s website.
Doyle emphasizes the growing need for emergency preparedness, especially in the face of increasingly unpredictable weather conditions.
“We’ve all seen how weather can take a turn, whether it's for good or bad, on Monday we had a 32-degree day outside today and we're going into the weekend where the highs are around 5 or 6,” said Doyle. “That's just temperature. Which doesn't constitute an emergency, but often times major swings in temperature like that can end up in serious weather events like thunderstorms or tornadoes.”
The system could also play a key role in wildland fire situations, Doyle added.
“When we are experiencing extremely dry conditions like we are right now the lightning can cause wildland forest fires, so it's important to be connected with Connect Portage just in case out of nowhere you end up in a situation where you need to be evacuated and you want to be able to be informed of that on short notice.”
Doyle also reassured residents that any data provided for Connect Portage will remain confidential.
“When you sign up for connect Portage then your information is used solely for this system. Never sold, never misused and stored securely,” he said.
Residents are encouraged to sign up before Tuesday’s test to ensure they receive the notification.