Subscriptions to Nanaimo’s emergency alert system skyrocket after tsunami evacuations
NANAIMO — It appears this week’s tsunami scare was a wake up call for a lot of mid-island residents.
The City and Regional District of Nanaimo reported a huge surge in the number of people signing up for their emergency notification systems on Tuesday. The influx of subscribers followed evacuations in several Vancouver Island communities due to the possibility of a tsunami from a powerful earthquake south of Alaska.
Karen Lindsay, the City of Nanaimo’s emergency program manager, said their system was actually knocked offline briefly due to the increase in traffic.
“Ideally, we’d like to see every resident that is able sign up for this call alert system. We’ve never seen a surge like that, so obviously people were thinking ‘Jeeze, how would I get notified if there was an emergency in the community?’” Lindsay told NanaimoNewsNOW.