UTAH, April 13, 2020 (Gephardt Daily) — The Utah Division of Emergency Management has discontinued the use of the Wireless Emergency Alert system to target alerts at Utah’s state line areas.
“Instead of a Wireless Emergency Alert, the Utah Department of Transportation will deploy variable message signs that indicate motorists should visit entry.utah.gov,” said a news release from Joe Dougherty, spokesman for the Utah Division of Emergency Management. “These signs will display a message similar to the WEA.”
Airline passengers at Salt Lake City International Airport will continue receiving a postcard with a QR code and link to the health declaration form, the news release said.
“Utah was the first state to attempt to use a WEA to alert motorists entering the state to fill out a health declaration form on the website,” the news release said “It was important for Utah to try every good idea to stop the spread of COVID-19 in our state. Innovations don’t always work out exactly how you hope, however.
“We have compassion for the residents who live well outside of the intended alerting area, some of whom were 80 miles away. We heard that some of them received the alert more than 15 times. The system is not supposed to work that way. Phones are supposed to recognize the alert no more than once per alert message.”
The news release said that federal partners are working with wireless carriers so that, in the future, alerts will be accurate by a tenth of a mile.
“We look forward to continued conversations with our federal partners and the wireless carriers as we work toward more precise alerting in the future,” the news release said. “In the meantime, the technology is still available for AMBER Alerts and other emergency messages that may need to be sent to wider areas of the state.”
The news release added that Monday afternoon, Salt Lake County Emergency Management sent a Wireless Emergency Alert to notify Salt Lake County residents that the county’s stay-at-home order has been extended through May 1. That extension was announced by Mayor Jenny Wilson last week, however the order was due to expire Monday, which is why the alert went out.
“We were aware this message would be coming at some point,” the news release said. “We support Salt Lake County in using this technology to reach as many of its residents as possible.”
