Letter: How to stay connected during an emergency
To the community,
Thank you to everyone who kept in touch with us via social media Sunday during the extended power outage. Almost 15,000 of you saw our postings on Facebook. During the power outage the police department issued “Reverse 911” calls with updates on the situation. Unfortunately, the calls were not received on land lines which were connected to answering machines because of the power failure and were primarily received on cellular phones.
As a result, the city is asking the public to sign up with their cellular numbers.
To register to receive “Reverse 911” calls to either or both your home landline and your mobile phone line, go online. It is very easy to sign up and you are allowed to sign up two different phone numbers and two different email addresses along with your physical address.
The El Dorado County Alert Notification System has made it easy to register your chosen contact information through the systems Self Registration Portal. You can then receive notification on your cellular telephone via phone call or text, or at your email address. It’s up to you. To register your emergency contact information or just to find out more information about the system, go online.
Social media via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram proved to be the most effective way to inform the public of Sunday’s emergency situation. You can find the links to the city’s Facebook and Twitter accounts on our home page. Scroll to the bottom of the page, look on the right side.
Please feel free to share so we can keep even more community members connected during an emergency situation.
Thank you!
Tracy Franklin, public information officer for South Lake Tahoe
I appreciate your sharing this information. Thank you.
Is there any contact for difficulty signing up? The webpage will not process my information.
Using these methods only to communicate with local residents is an ineffective and unsafe way to warn residents of problems associated with a major storm and and possible disaster. Why does the city and county not address a live radio station to inform us as to what is going on. This should not be that difficult. With a power outage the phone and internet will not work. The cell phone does not work in the area I live in and I live within the city limits.
I have registered for this mentioned site however it will be totally ineffective during a power outage
May I suggest that an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) is part of the answer. A UPS will protect your computer from power hits and also continue to power your modem/router (or your phone box). Many service prividers continue to have service during power outages. Not sure about Charter but AT&T has excellent back up power. It is another consideration when choosing phone service.
I have mine connected to my desktop and modem/router. I had acces to the network for the entire time. Many different types and sizes are readily available. I turned off my desktop but used the iPhone to get updates. Many configurations are possible.
Want to know how to stay connected during an emergency?
Have a land line with an analog phone. I have been living here for nearly 29 years. Let me assure you, a 5+ hour power outage is nothing for this region.
I have seen power out in areas for days on end. You must also have an alternate form of heat, which is why I have always had a woodstove in my house. When the power goes out, your forced air heat is done.
Not good enough. We need an emergency radio station.
Dumbfounded
May I ask how many additional minutes of power do you get from your UPS for your computer, modem and router when the power is out and what was the approximate cost of your UPS unit? Thanks
The reason I have a good old-fashioned AT&T landline with regular telephone is it never goes out. Never in 40 years. As usual, worked just fine during the power outage last weekend. Charter phone customers were not so fortunate.
No “Reverse 911” call received from the City, however.
Steve:
That’s the same reason I have a good old-fashioned AT&T landline and keep one old-fashioned phone that I paid $10 for that you plug in to a wall jack and doesn’t need electricity to operate. It does keeps you tethered to the wall but at least you can make and accept calls if need be and in the 50-years I’ve had a landline it’s also never gone out.
I was fortunate and did get the reverse 9-1-1 call from the City though.
I live in the county and my attempt at registration failed because the mapping function could not find my address. So this service appears to be only for city residents.
Maybe the county should step up and provide a service for everyone. Or Liberty energy could put a notification on their website or telephone tree.
edit: I tried again and it worked. The first time I entered South Lake Tahoe as my town and it failed. The successful sign up used Meyers as the town.
That emergency broadcast system out of Reno seems to cover to much area for people only concerned with Lake Tahoe, south shore, ect…
Responding to the question from “Fifty year resident”:
Uninteruptible power units have prices all over the map, and same for their performance. Reasonable priced ones that will power equipment for awhile are available from Staples, CostCo, and lots of other places. Modern computers don’t usually have problems from the power going out while they are turned on, and monitors don’t have problems, AFAIK. But, the monitors and tower computers pull a fair amount of power (watts).
Laptops don’t drain much, and have batteries…so only whatever modem or WiFi Router, or whatever, needs power in an emergency, for internet access. If you have a cable modem, the modem needs to be kept alive, of course. Check your equipment for maximum power needs, and purchase a UPS accordingly. A good rule of thumb is that the power unit be rated for 30 to 50% minimum over what you could need. Be advised that most of these power units contain rather modest-sized gel-batteries, often the same type used in home alarm systems, and it is these batteries that determine, for the most part, how long the units will run. For my own system, instead of replacing the batteries (uses two alarm type batteries that last at most 1/4 hour on MY unit) when they ‘aged-out’; I substituted a 28 or 30 ampere-hour motorcycle battery; which will run EVERYTHING for a long time. One could use a car battery too for even longer run times. Ensure good ventilation for the unit. Be careful with battery connections, don’t allow any way for short circuits, which can cause fires, to occur.
Bottom Line: There are many ways to maintain communications in time of emergency, and there are many different needs. Many responses in this Thread have dealt with them. Consider according to your situation/needs.
Thanks Bob
For the information on the UPS backup.I will check it out. As for the other suggestions about AT&T phone service that is a no go for me as Charter’s internet is so so far superior to AT&T that is a deal breaker for me plus my phone includes many options at a tenth of the price of AT&T.
My suggestion about the radio is due to my more than 50 years living here, In past years at least one station KOWL had a generator and broadcast everything from school information to power outages and local news which was most helpful. They now tend to be automated most of the time however I think KTHO is live a lot of the time now. I would hope our city leaders would work with one or both of the radio stations to assist with local information during challenging or difficult circumstances when needed in our community.
Again thanks for the information on UPS
I have a hard line phone as well as a portable phone. My phone did not ring once during the power outage. Is Meyers on the reverse 911 grid???
KTHO is only live Monday thru Friday 6 am to midnight though after 2 pm the djs are out of area, the lake has local djs monday thru friday and some hours on the weekend
Off the topic a bit, however, YES! I have noticed the reduction in live “local radio” over the weekends, since the change of management. The weekly coverage has also declined. I am a bit disappointed to say the least. There must be a financial reason…SLT is a dead end road? Seems to me that the “Powers that Be” should have recreated SLT at least 15 yrs ago? Nothing new to all the readers.
Fifty-Year…
You can get a suitable UPS for about $ 100. Depending on the usage (devices using power from the UPS) you can get many hours of power at low current flows. I got more than four hours during this episode by limiting the UPS to only powering my modem/router. I used my iPhone to access the internet. Bob Fleisher is, of course, correct. There are many possible UPS configurations. For instance, if you had a solar array, you could probably power a modem/router for decades.
As regards the radio station. I definitely miss the old reliable AM radio. I miss hearing Bill Kingman. The Mighty 590… But those days are long gone, no more DJs looking out the window for a weather report…
“dumbf”, thank you! I miss live local radio, too.
Ownership changes yes, but mostly, I believe it’s the FCC changes (pushed by big money?) creating the current least-expensive broadcast climate of automation rather than live and local broadcasting.
The FCC formerly required a licensed live person on duty during all hours of broadcasting, usually the local deejay. Today, my laptop computer can control a radio station anywhere, with no local licensed operator on duty, and no local live programming required.
Thinking of radio stations there was one out of No. Shore called KSML or also called the “Secret Mountain Labratory”. This station was operating around 1972. Short lived but a lot of good music and good humor with a Liberal leaning crew. Much fun!
I miss the live local radio of yesterday! During the last power outage or the Angora fire or any other local emergencies, I couldn’t find out s#%&*.
Please bring back live and local radio broadcasting to Tahoe!!! OLS