Date: Fri, 11 Jun 2004 09:32:30 -0700
To: Sheryl.Contois@CityofPaloAlto.org
From: Pat Muffler
Subject: Responses to BPA survey re. Sunday's emergency phone calls

Dear Sheryl:

At 7:16 PM on Sunday 06 June 2004 I posted the following message on the 
Barron Park Association list serve:

************************************************************************************

To: bpa-news@bpaonline.org
Subject: [bpa-news] Please reply to phone-alert-results@bpaonline.org 
concerning today's Emergency phone call
Cc: Sheryl.Contois@CityofPaloAlto.org, dm@dougmoran.com

As Emergency Preparedness Chair for the Barron Park Association, I would 
like to get some feedback as to how today's use of the Palo Alto Emergency 
Community Notification System worked.  Several persons (including myself) 
received truncated messages, and several persons (again including myself) 
received multiple, apparently identical phone messages.  I would like to 
get a feel as to how widespread these problems were.

Doug Moran has set up a special mailbox for Barron Park residents to report 
their experience with the phone calls sent by the City of Palo Alto 
concerning the bobcat/cougar sightings Sunday morning.  This mailbox is:

                 phone-alert-results@bpaonline.org

Please send your response ONLY to this special mailbox, NOT as a reply to 
me (I'll be in real hot water if our e-mail, which my wife uses for her 
bookkeeping business, is cluttered tomorrow morning with dozens of your 
responses!)

Off the top of my head, I suggest that you give the following information.

1.  Phone number
2.  Approximate time the alert was received.
3.  Was the version you received truncated?
4.  Did you receive more than one alert?
5.  Did you try replaying the message, and did it work?
6.  Was the message picked up by your answering machine, or did you listen 
to it directly?
7.  Any other comments or pertinent information.

Thanks for your assistance in evaluating Palo Alto's Emergency Community 
Notification System and helping to make it better.

*************************************************************************

Attached as a Microsoft Word document are the 81 responses received, edited 
by Doug Moran and me to remove extraneous material (e.g., my original 
message) and any identifiers of the responders.  Although the survey was 
not scientific and the responses probably don't meet statistical tests, I 
think you will find the messages give good insight to the community thoughts.

Several things come through loud and clear:

1.  The community appreciates the emergency phone system and wants to see 
it work properly.

2.  No one understands why the "emergency" message was sent out 5 hours 
after the 2nd sighting of a big cat.  If it was a true emergency, why 
wasn't the message sent out ASAP after the 2nd sighting?  In the warm, 
mid-afternoon, any big cat is sleeping, most likely a long way from where 
it was sighted, and the message is of questionable relevance other than 
demonstrating that the Police Department remembered to use the system.

3.  Many people received several messages on the same phone line.  Isn't 
this a bit of "crying wolf"?  By the third time,  people are likely to 
respond "Enough, already!".

4.  Many of the messages, whether listened to in-person or heard via 
answering machine, were truncated.  Is this why repeat messages were sent?

5.  Several respondents said that they almost hung up because a long pause 
made them think the phone call was a solicitation.  One respondent 
suggested that there be something relevant and informative on the 
caller-id, such as PA Emergency.

6.  People don't hear the same thing and don't remember things 
accurately.  I guess that is human nature.

To protect the privacy of the respondents, we attempted to remove all 
identifying information from the responses.  The resultant document has 
been provided for the internal use of the Palo Alto Police Department for 
its use in assessing the effective of the emergency automated telephone 
system and how to improve that system.  Any other use, or distribution to 
any other group in whole or in part, requires prior approval of the BPA 
President Doug Moran.  If the excised personal information would be useful 
in analyzing the problems with the system, please contact the BPA 
President.  Similarly, if you want to use quotes (or approximate quotes) 
from any of the responses in a press release or other public presentation, 
please contact the BPA President so that appropriate wording is provided to 
assure the respondents that their comments remain anonymous.

I look forward to meeting with you, Doug Moran, Annette Ashton, and Karen 
White on the 15th.

                         Patrick

Patrick Muffler
961 Ilima Way
Palo Alto, CA  94306-2618
Phone and fax:  (650) 493-6439