Spokane County Emergency Management says it has selected a new partner to provide mass emergency alerts to county residents.
SPOKANE COUNTY, Wash. — After losing nearly 50% of its data in a cyber attack, Spokane County Emergency Management (SCEM) has relaunched ALERT Spokane with a new partner to help keep county residents safe.
“The environments are more secure than they were in the past,” said SCEM Deputy Director Chandra Fox.
She says that after an 8-year partnership with Code Red, the county had to look for another mass notification partner following a cyber attack that forced them to lose a significant amount of their data.
“We were not actually informed that a cyber attack even happened for a couple weeks until one of our users had attempted to log into the system but was locked out of it,” said Fox.
For the last 5 months, Fox says the organization relied on the state alerting system until a new partner was decided by a panel of emergency management professionals from across the county.
“We looked at 5 different products, and the selection panel was unanimous with Regroup. It is so much faster than the Code Red system,” Fox said.
Staff says county IT has looked through the system to ensure it’s secure, and Fox says they are working with Regroup to add new features in the future, such as adding multiple addresses to stay informed about things happening in more places than just a resident’s own home.
“Folks need to remember that wildfire is not the only thing we need to worry about…we have multiple different hazards in our county, whether it’s law enforcement activity or severe weather, and we always want to reach as many people as possible,” Fox said.
She says SCEM will be sending a series of tests over the next 10 days to make sure those who are subscribed can get notifications however they choose. More on how to sign up for alerts can be found at the SCEM website.
