As for the delay in sending e-mail and text alerts to 13,260 NolaReady.info subscribers on the east bank, records show the S&WB's emergency preparedness director notified his counterpart at City Hall, as well as Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Jerry Sneed, by e-mail about the impending boil-water advisory at 1:30 a.m.
But at a news conference a few days later, Sneed said that message didn't arrive for several hours and that it didn't include an official copy of the advisory, which Sneed insisted was needed in order to issue the alert.
"In the middle of the night, e-mail is good, but it needs to be followed up by phone calls to ensure that we got those messages," he said. "All those problems have been corrected, and we feel confident that the issues won't happen again."
St. Martin and Sneed said on Friday that they have changed their emergency protocols as a result. In the future, they said, they will call senior city officials at their home and cell phones -- or dispatch police to rouse them, if necessary -- when major problems occur at night.
All and all this policy review is probably a good idea. It's just that the option of sending the cops over to kick down doors in order to confirm the receipt of an email opens up the possibility of all sorts of mischief and also explains why I probably shouldn't work for S&WB.
No comments:
Post a Comment