The Contra Costa County Civil Grand Jury recommends that the county modify its community warning system by 2025 to automatically register residents into the system.
Currently, just 30% of Contra Costa County residents have created an account on the CWS and entered their contact data—meaning 70% who have not registered may not receive any alert.
The Grand Jury made several recommendations within its 16-page report as it asked whether everyone will get a warning in time. This report focused on the possibility that Contra Costa County’s Community Warning System (CWS) could also fail to deliver timely and accurate notifications to people in danger. The system became operational in 2001 and has not been tested in extreme conditions that such major disasters would present.
Changing the CWS to an opt-out system removes the requirement for any County resident or business to create an account in order to receive calls or texts on their cell phones, calls on their VoIP line, or email. Those who don’t want their contact data registered in the CWS would have to request their data not be included. Such residents or businesses could still receive alerts via other mechanisms such as the WEA, radio, TVs, social media, and non-VoIP landlines if those tools are activated. The annual cost to the County to periodically obtain the contact data of its residents and businesses from the various telecom companies is estimated to be on the order of $100,000.
A one-time cost to educate the public about the change to the system and to provide them information on how and when to opt out would also be incurred by the County and is estimated to be on the order of $500,000. For the purpose of cost-benefit analyses of government programs the United States FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) estimated the value of a life at $7.5 million in 2020. The benefit of an opt-out process, in terms of potential value of loss of life, outweighs the estimated cost.
FINDINGS
F1. The CWS is used in response to emergencies in the County.
F2. About 30% of County residents have created a CWS account and entered their contact data.
F3. The approximately 70% of residents who haven’t registered with CWS may not receive any alerts in the event that other alerting tools not reliant on registration in the CWS – WEA, radios, and TVs – are not activated.
F4. Additional redundancies in the processes and operation of the CWS can increase the potential for more people to receive timely alerts.
F5. To enable the redundancy of other alerting tools – sending recorded voice messages to cell and VoIP phones, text messages, and emails – the contact data for these devices must be registered in the CWS.
F6. Phone numbers and associated physical addresses can be loaded into the CWS for all businesses and residents in the County from the various telecom providers that serve the County.
F7. In an opt-out warning system, County residents and businesses that do not want their phone and/or email data in the CWS can request to have their data removed.
F8. The reliance of the CWS on voluntary registration creates a risk that too few residents will register their phones and email in CWS.
F9. An opt-out system would incur annual costs for data subscriptions on the order of $100,000.
F10. An opt-out system would incur an initial cost to educate residents and businesses of the CWS system change on the order of $500,000.
F11. Outdoor warning systems supplement other warning tools by providing acoustic (voice or siren sounds) to people who are outdoors.
F12. Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs) can broadcast audible instructions to people outdoors when cell phones and other alert-receiving devices may not be working or heard.
F13. A sound study is needed to evaluate where, if at all, LRADs might be effective in Contra Costa County.
F14. Sites where LRADs could be located would need to be identified for any areas in which LRADs are found to be effective.
F15. The County would incur a cost for a sound study on the feasibility to deploy LRADs within the County
F16. There is no estimate of the cost for an independent, third party to conduct a feasibility study for the use of LRADs within the County.
F17. LRADs would be part of the County’s emergency response warning tools.
F18. Costs related to emergency response can be funded from Measure X revenue.
F19. At all times, one of the three CWS employees is the designated on-call duty officer who responds to requests for activation of the CWS. F20. In the event of disasters such as fast-moving wildfires, a reasonable time for alerts to be sent to the public is within 20 minutes of when the incident commander contacts the CWS duty officer.
F21. Once the CWS duty officer is contacted by the Sheriff’s dispatch center the CWS duty officer has up to 10 minutes to call the incident commander.
F22. In the event the CWS duty officer is not reached after two attempts to contact them, the dispatch center attempts to contact a backup person to the duty officer.
F23. Additional time is required to contact CWS backup personnel and have them get to a computer and establish a secure connection into the CWS.
F24. In the event the CWS duty officer is not reached after two attempts by the dispatch center to contact them, the time required to contact backup personnel to the on-call CWS duty officer is uncertain.
F25. Reliance on a single person to operate the CWS, the on-call CWS duty officer, creates a risk that alerts and notifications could be delayed.
F26. Two evacuation drills in the city of Richmond in 2022 and 2023 resulted in half of the drill participants claiming they should have received a drill alert but did not, or received the alert hours later after the drill was completed.
F27. The CWS did not conduct any studies to verify or understand the claims Richmond evacuation drill participants made that they should have received a drill alert but did not, or received the alert hours later after the drill was completed.
F28. The CWS is not tested to determine the extent to which people actually notice, read, or hear alerts sent by the
CWS. F29. The CWS staff evaluates its systems and processes for risks.
F30. The County has not engaged a firm with expertise in risk analysis of community warning systems to conduct a comprehensive risk analysis of the CWS since the County took control of the system in 2001.
F31. The current process for improving the design and operation of the CWS for alerts not related to releases of hazardous chemicals resides within the Sheriff’s Office
F32. There is no formal body or process that brings together emergency response experts from emergency response agencies in the County to focus and advise solely on the design and operation of the CWS.
F33. The functioning and effectiveness of the CWS can be improved, and operational risks reduced, with the implementation of a CWS advisory body.
F34. The Emergency Services Policy Board (ESPB) can create subcommittees, such as a CWS advisory committee.
F35. The CWS staff provides training materials to the fire districts/departments, police departments, and dispatch centers in the County on the use of CWS, its tools, types of warnings, activation, and information needed by the CWS duty officer.
F36. The CWS staff does not have a process to determine if the recipients of the training it provides to the first responders of the fire districts/departments, police departments, and dispatch centers who receive the training materials on CWS have read and understood the training materials
RECOMMENDATIONS
R1. By March 31, 2025, the Board of Supervisors should develop a plan to modify the CWS so that it automatically registers all available contact data for all County residents and businesses into its system and provides a mechanism for residents and businesses to opt out of the automatic registration process.
R2. By December 31, 2025, the Board of Supervisors should complete the implementation of the plan to modify the CWS so that it automatically registers all available contact data for all County residents and businesses into its system and provides a mechanism for residents and businesses to opt out of the automatic registration process.
R3. By December 31, 2024, the Board of Supervisors should commission a sound study by an independent, third party to determine the feasibility of deploying LRADs in any areas of the County.
R4. By June 30, 2025, the Office of the Sheriff should train employees in the Sheriff’s dispatch center to operate the CWS.
R5. By March 31, 2025, the Office of the Sheriff should implement a plan to conduct testing of the CWS to determine the causes of the failure of CWS alerts to reach all the intended recipients of test alerts within 10 – 20 minutes of the time the alert is sent.
R6. By June 30, 2025, the Board of Supervisors should execute a contract with a third-party consulting firm to conduct a comprehensive risk analysis of the CWS, including its processes, procedures, contracts, hardware, and software.
R7. By March 31, 2025, the Board of Supervisors should direct the County’s Chief Administrative Officer to establish a CWS advisory subcommittee of the Emergency Services Policy Board.
R8. By June 30, 2025, the Office of the Sheriff should implement a process to ensure that first responders in County agencies who take the CWS training certify they have reviewed and understood the training materials.
Full Report on the Community Warning System – click here.
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