Reader Comments

" the onecall system is great. my national gaurd unit used it in the Family Rediness Group as a way of notifying family members of updates and communication which needed to be sent out all at once. Everyone recieves the call at the exact same time, and there is no "he said, she said". However, someone will have to appointed to initiate the call. That person will have to make the call into the system, record thier message, and then have it sent out. That sometimes takes several minutes,and then it may take up to an hour or more for the system to send the message out. So, take it from someone who has used the program, this IS NOT an effective weather alart system. "

" If the city/county officials are really concerned with our safety and they want to do something to protect us, than buy everyone a weather radio for about $30. They run on battery-back up if the power goes out and they're hooked directly into the National Weather Service in Wilmington. There's no need for sirens, phone calls, etc. if everyone had the hand-held weather radios. I suggest that everyone save their pennies and buy one of these. It will save your life when the power is out and you can't watch the news or your phone is out and you can't get one of these phone calls.

Also, just this morning, several coworkers said they received their phone calls about the severe weather last night about an hour after the storm was gone. How effective is this system? I think the taxpayers should file a serious complaint to get their money handled by someone else that knows what they're doing. "

" Telephone calling for weather event is not effective. One of the first things to be damaged by high winds is the communication lines and power lines. Recently Union County Ohio recently stopped using this system to call on storm related events because it took way too long to reach people. Dave Boone was quoted in a recent article in the Columbus Dispatch saying, "The sirens were going off right across the street, and, a half-hour later, my phone rings."

This is a waste of tax payers money, being sold by slick salesmen. It might work fine for finding a lost child but for weather events that are moving at 60 miles per hour they are applying the wrong technology.

I have no doubt they can dial 1,000's of numbers in an hour but our local phone system will not be able to handle that many calls, it can even cause a shutdown of 911 calls. I just wonder if our officals really spent the time to do their research or if they simply too the salesman at his word. It sure should nice an flashy, at the end of the year I would like to know how much we spent on each call. Taxes are high enough, weather radio system was setup to handle this problem and has worked very well. It is time to tell our officials to stop buying their toys with our money. "

" I think this a great asset for the city and county. Most people are so busy working their butts off, they don't have time to listen to the radio or watch TV. They would have no way of knowing there is a tornado warning if it weren't for this system. "