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Week of December 22, 2022
JEFFERSON COUNTY, COLORADO
A publication of
JeffcoTranscript.com
VOLUME 39 | ISSUE 22
Jeffcom looking into early-morning countywide emergencyalert calls
Holiday spirit
Calls were for an incident in Lakewood BY DEB HURLEY BROBST DBROBST@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM
Residents throughout the county were awakened around 1 a.m. Dec. 18 when phones rang, and emails and texts were received regarding an emergency down the hill. Jeffcom911, Jefferson County’s emergency services agency, has apologized for waking people unnecessarily. “Our sincerest apology,” Jeffcom911 said on social media. “We are aware of a Lookout Alert sent out this morning, notifying residents of a shelter-in-place that … may not have impacted (them). We are looking into the case with the vendor. We apologize for any inconvenience or confusion this may have created.” Jeff Streeter, Jeffcom911’s interim executive director, said the agency is working with its vendor for Lookout Alert, which is the agency’s emergency notification system, to determine whether it was technology or human error that sent notifications to 160,000 people throughout the county rather than to residents in a specific area. The call informed residents that Lakewood police had issued a shelter-in-place order because of an
Lakewood High School cheerleaders perform with the marching band in the Dec. 10 holiday parade in downtown Golden. PHOTO BY CORINNE WESTEMAN
incident at 17th and Robb Street. “This was very unfortunate,” Streeter said. “We apologize to everybody who was woken up. We know it’s scary and trying, and it was not our intent by any stretch.” He hopes people won’t use this incident as a reason to opt out of Lookout Alert because it provides a vital service to warn residents of emergencies. Instead, he hopes people see these calls as an indicator that the system can work. “While we have gotten some negative comments on social media,”
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Streeter said, “honestly, we have had a lot of positive comments, too. They said at least they know the system works, and they were notified.” Streeter noted that Lookout Alert notified everyone in Jefferson County who has signed up for the service even when they were out of town. “If this had been something like a Marshall Fire, people who are out of town could have made arrangements,” he said. According to a Jeffcom911 social media post: “We know we can’t make up for any sleep lost last night,
but we hope you sleep a little better tonight knowing the glitch you experienced has been fixed, and the suspect (in Lakewood) was apprehended safely.”
SIGN UP FOR LOOKOUT ALERT To sign up for Lookout Alert, Jefferson County’s emergency notification system, Text LookoutAlert to 67283 to get the link to register or visit www.jeffco. us/473/Emergency-Notifications.
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