Thousands may not have received emergency notification during Waldo Fire

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Now that the Waldo Canyon fire is 100% contained, officials within the county emergency notification system are taking a look at the number of emergency alerts that reached residents and those that did not.

“That seems to be a popular topic:  I didn’t receive a call, what should I have done?” says Ben Bills, with El Paso-Teller 911.

Bills says not enough lines may have added to any difficulties. ”I’ve been in contact with our vendor.  There are some other players in the game that I need to sit down with,” he says.

Bills says about 118,000 households or 82 percent of people in harm’s way were reached.

Of course, everyone would like that number to reach 100 percent. ”Is the system actively making phone calls? During the Waldo Canyon Fire, we did verify that, it in fact, was making phone calls, and now we’re in the process of pulling reports to make sure it worked as it was designed,” says Bills.

Two people died in the Waldo Canyon Fire. They did not have a land-line registered with the reverse-dialing system or a cell phone registered with the county.