ADAMS COUNTY, Colo. — A shelter-in-place message sent out by Adams County 911 on Sunday failed to identify the sender or explain what the emergency was or where it was happening.
Those were just some of the failures of the message, according to Rob Dale, the emergency manager in Ingham County, Michigan, and an expert in alert warnings.
“We have a lot of organizations that are coming online … and using things that they may have used successfully in past events and then translating to cell phones,” Dale said. “And it's not a direct translation."
Sunday’s message said: Emergency Alert POLICE ACTIVITY IN AREA-PLEASE SHELTER IN PLACE UNTIL ADDITIONAL INFORMATION IS RECEIVED.
The message was sent after someone called 911 and reported a man had shot at a neighbor near the intersection of West 80th Avenue and Conifer Road. The man allegedly held responding Adams County sheriff’s deputies at bay for a time, then was shot by one of the officers as they attempted to arrest him.
The man remained hospitalized Monday. The deputy was on paid leave – as is customary – while the shooting is under investigation.
A message 9NEWS left Monday for the head of Adcom911 was not returned. Monday was Presidents Day, a federal holiday.
“This, in general, does not meet a lot of the criteria that we look for in effective messaging,” Dale said.
“It should say 'Smith County 911' or something along those lines,” he said. “Everyone knows what a 911 center is, even if it's not what they call it. Just call it the Smith County 911 and tell us who it is.”
Dale also said the alert should have included a location – perhaps not the exact address, but maybe the closest major cross streets or a nearby landmark.
Then there’s the substance of the message itself. Police activity? Shelter in place?
“Police activity can mean anything from there was a police stop and someone ran because they had parking tickets to there's a man with a gun shooting at people,” Dale said.
And, he said, "shelter in place" can be confusing.
“A lot of people have taken 'shelter in place' to mean I'm staying right where I am,” he said. “And we've seen this in previous incidents in universities where they've been told there’s an active shooter – shelter in place, and people stand outside where they are because they're told to shelter in place.”
A better message, he said, could be to “get indoors, lock your doors, lock your windows.”
The wireless emergency alert system includes two options – a 90-character message for older phones, and a 360-character message that the vast majority of mobile phones can receive. Adams County sent out only one message, tailored to the phones only about 10% of people are carrying.
“You have the space to write out the longer message – use it,” Dale said. “We don't get credits for leaving extra space at the end. Take advantage of that.”
The message that went out went far beyond the neighborhood where the trouble was happening.
And that points to another problem – with the lack of information in the message, people in other jurisdictions were left searching for answers. Some may have even clogged 911 lines.
“A lot of times when we see these messages go out when they're not proper, or they're not as effective as could be, it makes the 911 phones ring,” Dale said, “because people are going to call the 911 to see what's going on.”
SUGGESTED VIDEOS: Latest from 9NEWS