KPTV - FOX 12Emergency notification system fails test

The first city-wide test of Portland's emergency notification system has been described as a "failure."

Carmen Merlo, the director of the city's Bureau of Emergency Management, says she's disappointed at the performance of the relatively new system.

A test message from Mayor Sam Adams was sent Thursday morning to Portlanders with registered phones and emails. Others had registered their personal devices with the Bureau of Emergency Management for a total of 317,000 recipients.

But less than 1 percent of them received the message.

The system has been in place for more than a year, but it's only been used for smaller-scale events, such as chemical spills.

But the city is paying for a system to notify as many people as possible - as quickly as possible - for an event like a big earthquake.

"We've used it for flooding and hazardous material spills, evacuation warnings," said Bureau Director Carmen Merlo. "We're doing this today because we want to make sure the system can perform the way we think it will during a city-wide emergency event."

Merlo says the city is paying First Call, a contractor from Louisiana, $120,000 for the first year and $80,000 for each additional year of the service.

She says the city will have to reevaluate the contract if the company cannot "adequately and immediately resolve the problem."

The company released a statement saying the "problems encountered today are being addressed."

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