Fire Evacuation Alert Communications Still Being Ironed Out
In the last decade digital technology has pushed analog off the cliff, and we're still tying up the loose ends from the severed analog connections. People over a certain age (40) remember analog telephones never needed a battery or any kind of power adapter. Among the half of households still using landlines these days, few of them realize their home lines won't work when the power is out, regardless of what kind of phone they have, because the underlying analog telephone networks have been replaced with digital networks . In 2018 KQED combed through 9-1-1 logs to identify some evacuation communications failures from 2017's fires , many of which have been fixed since their report. The L.A. Times this week reported more communications and alert failures in this article: Camp fire evacuations failed to reach more than a third of residents meant to receive calls . The L.A. Times also reported more state legislature calls to action toward closing the feedback loop in this ar...