The City recently sent alert messages to inform the community about curfews in the downtown area and citywide. We received feedback and questions about the messages.
Types of Alerts
Emergency response officials have a variety of alert tools to use in the event of severe weather, fire, flooding, hazardous materials, need for immediate evacuation, civil danger, local area emergencies, and missing persons.
Subscription-based Alerts
One opt-in messaging system is the City of Eugene’s website alerts. You can stay connected with the City of Eugene by subscribing to a number of online communications including emergency alerts. To sign up, visit our Stay Connected web page and follow the instructions to subscribe. Scroll down to the Alerts section and indicate whether you want to receive alerts via text or email. You can unsubscribe anytime. The City of Eugene used this tool to send an alert to subscribers on the evening of June 1.
Location-based Alerts
There are a variety of alert systems that do not require subscription, but instead deliver messages to mobile phones, landlines, TV, and/or radio based on location.
On June 1, the City also used one of these systems – Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA). WEA messages are sent to your mobile phone during an emergency. No sign-up is required. WEA are sent only during an emergency by authorized government alerting authorities. Types of alerts include extreme weather warnings, local emergencies requiring evacuation or immediate action, AMBER Alerts, and Presidential Alerts.
You only receive WEA messages when your cell phone is in the area of the emergency. If you visit another city, you will only receive alerts for that location and not your hometown.
You can manage these messages by going to the notifications section of your mobile device’s Settings. These messages may be differentiated from regular text messages in that WEA messages include a special tone and vibration, both repeated twice.
Read more about these emergency alerts and other messaging systems.
Curfews and Alerts
Our goal in sending alerts on June 1 was to be transparent and clear about the curfew and these tools are an effective way to share that message broadly. Some people were glad to receive the message while others were frustrated. We are assessing whether the text alert will be used if future curfews will be implemented. When managing your alerts, keep in mind the many different situations when they may be used.