Marin County will send a test alert to AlertMarin subscribers Saturday, Sept. 26, at 10 a.m.
Fewer than half of Marin households, about 46,000 homes, have at least one person registered with the system, according to a county news release published Wednesday, Sept. 16. Officials want the rest of the county's households to sign up before the test goes out. AlertMarin is the county's emergency notification system, used to deliver evacuation orders, shelter-in-place instructions and other life-safety alerts. That leaves more than half of the county's households without a direct line to that critical information.
"With changing weather patterns and the anticipated impacts associated with El Niño, staying informed and prepared is more important than ever," Steven Torrence, director of the Marin County Office of Emergency Management (OEM), said in the release.
The test will reach registered users by phone, text and email in English or Spanish, based on each subscriber's settings. The county's goal is at least one registrant per household.
New alert categories
The upgraded AlertMarin platform, which OEM migrated to in April without service disruption, now offers optional notification groups that go beyond life-threatening emergencies. Subscribers can opt in to receive alerts for coastal flooding and king tides, prescribed burns, riverine and creek flooding, significant traffic disruptions and significant weather events.
Those categories respond to community feedback and carry particular weight heading into an El Niño winter. Nick Brubaker, OEM's chief resilience officer, told the Marin County Board of Supervisors on Aug. 19 that king tides forecast for this fall and winter could coincide with atmospheric rivers, warning of "… very significant flooding impacts across the county," as the Marin Independent Journal reported Aug. 22.
Mill Valley residents flagged gaps
The registration gap played out in real time at a Mill Valley community meeting Aug. 19, where about 50 residents gathered to discuss a July 27 fire that burned 1.5 acres in steep terrain between Hillside Avenue and Blithedale Ridge. Neighbors said they received no timely updates as fire retardant planes and helicopters responded overhead, according to the Marin Independent Journal.
Paula Vlamings, a Mill Valley resident below Blithedale Ridge, described gathering belongings to evacuate with no word from the city. "When you have a fire that close and you're running around your house gathering all your belongings to get out and there's no information from the city … we knew nothing," Vlamings said at the Aug. 19 meeting, as the Marin Independent Journal reported Aug. 24.
Officials at that meeting explained that AlertMarin sends evacuation orders and shelter-in-place instructions, not fire-progression updates. The new optional groups could help fill some of those awareness gaps for future incidents.
How to register
Signing up takes fewer than five minutes at Emergency.MarinCounty.gov. No account is required. Residents can register up to five addresses and choose English or Spanish for alerts. The county recommends saving the AlertMarin phone number, 877-627-1411, as a contact and enabling Emergency Bypass on iPhones or favoriting it on Android so calls get through Do Not Disturb settings.
Existing subscribers should log in to review their contact information and opt in to any new notification groups before the Sept. 26 test.
