Enrique Sanchez was working for the Park City Police Department last August when the Parleys Canyon Fire started racing up a hillside toward neighborhoods in Summit Park and Pinebrook.
He got calls from concerned Pinebrook residents, many of them in the Elk Meadows Apartments. They primarily spoke Spanish but received a text message written in English telling them to evacuate.
“People were just confused about what they were supposed to be doing at the time, because the communication to them wasn't in their own language, and they weren't able to fully understand that,” Sanchez said. “… The tone in their voice was out of concern for their safety and the safety of their family and their belongings.”
The fire never reached those homes, but Summit County Communications Director Derek Siddoway said the experience revealed gaps in the county’s emergency preparedness.
On Wednesday, Siddoway told the county council the department has launched a bilingual emergency notification system.
The county used something called the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System last August to send out the evacuation notifications. It’s also called IPAWS, and it’s the same system that sends out Amber Alerts.
Park City Emergency Manager Mike McComb said IPAWS has an option to send Spanish-language messages to any phone in a geographic area that has Spanish as its default language. From now on, a Summit County staffer will translate emergency alerts into Spanish and send them as soon as possible after an English alert goes out.
The system was put to the test the day before Siddoway’s presentation, when a truck rollover closed Interstate 80 in both directions and the 4,000 gallons of acid it was carrying were being vaporized into the air. The Spanish alert went out 30 minutes after the English one.
Siddoway said the department is working to cut that time down. He said a communications staffer is training to become certified to send alerts directly, rather than waiting for Summit County dispatchers, who are generally busy when emergencies arise.
Siddoway and Bailey Edelstein, the county’s multicultural communications and outreach specialist, said there are several other aspects of the outreach plan. They include a hotline with recorded updates in English and Spanish and a new text alert system for Spanish speakers.
Sanchez said residents were glad to receive the information he gave them in Spanish during the wildfire-related evacuations.
“I think that that definitely gave some of those residents some assurance that they were safe, and that the fire was not near their home quite yet,” he said.
He credited Summit County and Park City for launching the system and said it could serve as an example to other governments.
Siddoway said the county is committed to communicating vital information to all of its residents.
“This isn't something that we're focusing a campaign on for the next six months and then it will be over. This is just an ongoing part of our general outreach and engagement whenever wildfire season comes around, when winter comes around and we talk about winter storms. And if we're ever fortunate enough to have flooding season anymore, to talk about that,” Siddoway said.
To sign up for text alerts in Spanish, text SUMMITALERTA to 888777.
