Wheatland Hills Alert System

Over the course of many years, we residents have voiced a desire at our annual meetings for a responsive alert system that would provide a way to spread messages of concern or interest quickly to all residents. Our current email-based alert system, described in more detail below, is showing its age and is in need of refreshing.

Overview of the Alert System Update

Our current alert system is email based and is neither as complete nor as responsive as it should be for getting alerts of critical events out to all residents quickly. Given current technology, a text-based alert system would provide a much quicker and more effective way to reach each household in Wheatland Hills simultaneously. To upgrade our alert system to one that is primarily text based, Wheatland Hills will need to maintain a protected contact list of at least one responsible person for each dwelling, including that person's:

1. first and last names.
2. Phone number for calling and texting (list "none" if this dwelling has no phone that can accept texts).
3. Phone number for calling but not texting (list "NA" if a phone number is listed on line 2).
4. Email address.
5. Home street address.
6. Home lot number.

To be included in the Wheatland Hills Alert List, please send an email with the above 6 lines filled in to the webmaster at rockyjross@gmail.com. More than one resident in a single home may be placed on this list. To do so, for each additional resident fill in the same six lines even if some of the information is redundant.

When the need for an alert arises, a single resident can be reached by phone call, text message, and/or email from the contact list. The address and lot number will help the one giving the alert to identify the resident (if unknown) on a map provided on this website that is labeled with the owner's name of each lot. A phone call or text message will reach the resident most quickly in the event of an emergency, so a mobile phone number to which calls and text messages can be sent is the most preferred and important link to have.

For an alert that should go to the entire subdivision at once, all contacts in the list can be texted and emailed (it is especially important to include an email alert for residents who do not have texting capabilities) automatically at once to ensure that all residents are reached as quickly as possible.

Important considerations when implementing such a system include provisions for residents to opt out of the list if they prefer and to implement the alert list in a way that keeps it veiled from telemarketers and their ilk.

If you would like more information, continue on to read about the alert system in more detail.

What is the Wheatland Hills Alert System?

If you haven't been part of or aware of our alert system, perhaps the best way to illustrate the need for one is to provide real examples of alerts that were delivered to residents through our current email-based alert system. Here is a selection.

• Time-Critical and Safety-Critical Alerts
  • Notification of thefts in the subdivision with admonitions to lock up and be watchful.
  • Announcements of bears seen on the prowl in the subdivision, which have happened at pre-hibernation, eat-it-up times, and were usually associated with properties that have one or more apple trees.
  • Warning to an individual neighbor that it appeared that they had a chimney fire.
• Time-Sensitive but Not Safety-Critical Alerts
  • Notification of an emerging, serious problem of infestations of pine beetles sickening pine trees in the subdivision.
  • Announcement of articles posted to the website about managing Richardson Ground Squirrel (aka gopher) infestations.
  • Reminders about upcoming subdivision-wide meetings where voting would occur on issues of consequence.
• Helpful Alerts, which were Not Particularly Time Sensitive or Safety Critical
  • Pointers to information of general interest newly posted on the subdivision website that would likely not otherwise have been checked.
  • Heads-Up about a weddings that would cause street parking congestion and project the joyous sounds of revelry into the night.

In each of the above cited cases, residents who were on the alert list appreciated getting the notifications in timely fashion. Anecdotally it appears that the overwhelming majority of residents would like to have some means of being notified of issues that affect them.

Refreshing Our Alert System

To better express why we need to upgrade alert system we first describe our current alert system.

Our Current Alert System

Here's how our current alert system works:

• The Wheatland Hills Board of Directors maintains a Google account with gmail address wheatlandhills.bod@gmail.com..
• Announcements requesting contact information for the Alert System have been placed occasionally in the Wheatland Hills newsletters and also collected at the annual Wheatland Hills picnic and subdivision meetings.
• This contact information has been (and continues to be) incorporated into the contact list associated with the Wheatland Hills gmail account.
• When an alert is warranted, the person who has identified the alert contacts the board members.
• If the alert needs to be sent to an individual household, a board member delivers it by logging on to the wheatlandhills.bod@gmail.com account and sending an email to the associated person in the contact list (or by phoning if a number is available).
• When an alert needs to be sent to the entire subdivision, the same process is followed, but the email is sent in one stroke to everyone in the contact list.
• Usually these emails are short and to the point with a reference to our website where the alert is posted in more detail.

Do We Really Need to Upgrade Our Alert System?

If it ain't broke, why fix it?

It is broke. We should fix it.

Actually, our current email-based alert system is not so much broke as it is outdated and not as responsive as it once was. Why? because technology has advanced to the point where most people now open their email much less often than they once did, preferring to send and receive text messages (SMS) on their smart phones for information that requires a quick response. The result is that alerts sent to an email address may not be read for a few days. Some of us users of smart phone technology are not aware that we can work with our email directly on our phones and receive notifications by sound of delivered email. And even if we are savvy about this, it is easy for us to neglect reading email right away. It simply has become fact that texting is more immediate, similar to a conversation, than email, which can be put off for a while.

Required and Desired Features of an Alert System

What capabilities should an alert system have?

1. The capacity to reach a responsible resident of a single household easily as needed.
2. The capacity to reach a responsible resident of all households in the subdivision easily and simultaneously as needed.
3. A delivery method that is reasonably certain to be received (i.e., read or heard) quickly.

As discussed at the leading paragraph of this section, the key feature missing from our current email-based system is number 3. The most important aspect of an alert system is its capacity to reach those on an alert list with critical information as soon as possible. A simple phone call would suffice for alerting a single Wheatland Hills resident of impending disaster, but will not work if the all residents need to be apprised as soon as possible. At this point in time, bulk text messaging provides the most promise of meeting desired feature 3.

Other Necessary Features and Supporting Components of an Alert System

Other features and supporting components of an alert system include:

• At least one other method of reaching residents with alerts who do not have the technology to send and receive text messages
• A contact list for residents that contains:
  • The first and last names of each resident in the subdivision who desires to be on the list (this could be more than one per household)
  • For each listed resident:
    • Their mobile phone number (for delivering text message and phone call alerts)
    • Their email address (as a backup alert conveyor)
    • Their street address (for address identification of the resident)
    • Their lot number (for visual verification of the home should the one sending the alert not know the address or the name of the residents at that location; a map is maintained on our website of all residences tagged by owner name and—in the future—a lot number and contact phone number that can be used for this purpose)