Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Amandalina Letterio

WILDFIRES

As City of Kamloops adopts Voyent Alert!, TNRD sings app’s praises

Sep 1, 2021 | 3:53 PM

KAMLOOPS — The City of Kamloops is getting ready to roll out a new emergency alert app for your phone.

The Voyent Alert! app will launch in October and allow Kamloops residents to sign up for notifications that go directly to your phone in emergencies.

A Canada Day wildfire above Juniper Ridge and Valleyview forced thousands of people from their homes. For upwards of one hour, they sat in cars looking at the City’s social media accounts for information and direction.

“Those people would have been specifically targeted with a message, and the message could have said which direction to go — and an orderly exodus as opposed to the chaos that occurred,” said Ken Christian, Mayor of Kamloops.

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The City will begin a one-year trial with the Voyent Alert! app in the late fall to provide immediate and trustworthy information.

“It would be what they call a push notification, so the information would come from our emergency operations centre, directly to the citizens,” said Christian.

The TNRD has been using the Voyent Alert! app since June, 2020, and it says it was vital during this year’s fire season.

“The ones who are using it and getting the notifications, they’re like, ‘Thank goodness. I wasn’t aware that something was happening and them my phone made this horrible claxon sound like an alarm and suddenly I realized that I was under an evacuation alert or my community was under evacuation order,'” said Michelle Nordstrom, Communications Manager at the TNRD.

The developers are currently making some changes to the app so that it can handle Kamloops’ larger population. The total cost will be less than $60,000.

“Our needs are different than the rural needs of the TNRD, so we need to look at our risk profile here in Kamloops and have a system that is designed to respond to that,” Christian continued.

He says the app will be utilized for other important messages the City wants to send its residents.

“Things like water system disruption, utility disruption, issues related to transportation incident that was creating a risk in a neighbourhood…” he explained.