In order to better serve the residents of Cook County, the Cook County Sheriff ’s Office has contracted with Global Connect, a national voice messaging service, to provide a Community Emergency Notification System that may be used to notify residents in the event of a local emergency.
Sheriff Mark Falk explained that Global Connect is an automated system that calls homes and businesses to deliver alert messages during serious emergencies. Falk said that law enforcement or emergency management personnel will be able to record a message to inform the public of an emergency situation and give the listener specific actions to take. “For example, we could have used this during the Ham Lake Wildfire,to contact people who lived in the evacuation area,” said Falk.
The Global Connect system can be activated by the sheriff and other designated officials from anywhere. “If Chief Deputy Leif Lunde and I are in a meeting in Duluth, we could call in or go on-line to activate an emergency notification,” said Falk.
Messages can be sent to the entire county or tailored to a specific neighborhood. Falk said in addition to emergency notifications regarding flood, wildfire, or similar situations, the system could be used to alert citizens of missing persons.
All of Cook County’s residential and business “land lines” maintained by Qwest and CenturyLink are preentered into the system. There is no need to self-register a telephone line that is wired into your home or business. However, in order to register cellular phone numbers or internet phones (VOIP), residents and businesses must visit the County website at co.cook.mn.us to add their information to the system.
Testing of the new system is under way. Falk said Global Connect is making sure the Cook County telephone system has the capacity to handle the automated calls. Residents or businesses may receive a practice call as part of this process. After testing is complete the system will go live and be available for use during future emergency events. Thetesting is expected to take about two weeks.
If you have any questions, please contact the Cook County Sheriff ’s Office at 387-3030.
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