Reverse 911 Information Page:

Most residents of Canyon County know that they can call 9-1-1 to get police, fire, or emergency medical assistance. Now, the County emergency response system can use the Reverse 911 Community Notification System to call residents and businesses with emergency information. The Reverse 911 system is a valuable tool for emergency responders to alert the community of time critical messages.

How does Reverse 911 work?

The Reverse 911 system allows the County 911 Center to rapidly notify residents and businesses by telephone.

In the event of an emergency, an operator in the 911 Center can identify the affected neighborhood or region of the County and record a message that describes the situation and recommends the protective actions residents should take. The Reverse 911 system will automatically call out to all telephone numbers within that geographic area and deliver the recorded message. If phone lines are busy, the system will attempt to redial those numbers a predetermined number of times to make contact. If an answering machine picks up the call, the emergency message will be left on the machine.

Rapid Notifications

The system is fast, but not instantaneous. Canyon County's system has a capacity to make 20 to 40 simultaneous out-going calls per minute. The actual number of calls placed by the system, however, is determined by both the number of outgoing phone lines and the length of the message. 

System Features

Reverse 911 has a number of distinct advantages over other components of the warning system.

• It can provide an initial warning as well as specific instructions to protect at-risk citizens. Both factors are necessary for an effective warning.
• Reverse 911 can target specific geographic locations, warning only those people who are directly at risk.
• The system uses existing devices (telephones) to alert citizens; there is no need for people to buy a specialized warning device.
• The system can deliver text messages to TTY/TDD devices. This feature has the potential to greatly enhance our ability to warn and protect citizens who are deaf or hard of hearing.
• System administrators can add telephone numbers to the database. This can be used to add cell phone and VoIP numbers to the system.

System Limitations

As with any component of the warning system, the Reverse 911 system has limitations. These can be minimized with diligent administration of the system, but they will always exist to some degree:

• The telephone number database contains only the telephone numbers that are in the 911 database in Canyon County. As a result, unless manually added to the database, Reverse 911 will not notify people with cell phones. To minimize this,  Canyon County has provided a link for residents to enter contact information for addition to the database. Register your phone number and address with us on our Reverse 911 signup form.
• Cell phone numbers are not included in the database. Cell phone numbers can be manually entered into the system either as part of a notification list or linked to a specific address. If linked to a specific address, the location of the cell phone number becomes essentially fixed to that location. This could lead to the situation of a cell phone being notified when the user is mobile and well out of the affected area. Or conversely, the situation where the user is mobile, is in the affected area, but is not notified because the fixed location of the number is in an unaffected area. Please consider this when registering cell phone information for addition to the database.
• Reverse 911 is very effective for making notifications within a well-defined geographic area. Due to the outgoing call capacity of the system, the system becomes less effective as the geographic area gets larger. For this reason, the County takes a systematic approach to warning, recognizing that no single application can provide warning to all citizens in all situations. The Reverse 911 system is an excellent enhancement to our system, but it does not replace any of the other components.

How will the system be used?

The system could be useful for many purposes however, Canyon County is reserving it exclusively for emergency or disaster notifications. Possible uses include:

• Hazardous materials release. An airborne hazardous materials release or potential for a release where there is a need for residents to evacuate or shelter-in-place.
• Community policing. Local police departments and the Canyon County Sheriff's Office may use the system for a variety of community policing situations, such as missing children alerts or prisoner escape.
• Public health alerts. Canyon County and the Southwest District Health Department may use the system to disseminate public health information such as boil water alerts or outbreak of infectious disease.

Add your telephone number to the database

The system was initially programmed with those listed and unlisted numbers which are provided to the 911 Emergency Dispatch center. Numbers not included in the initial programming were:

• Listed or unlisted telephone numbers without any listed address
• Cell phone numbers
• Voice over Internet (VoIP) numbers

If you believe your telephone number was not included in the initial setup of the system, you may have your home or business included by filling out the form at the link below.

You can also register you information by calling Canyon County Emergency Management at 208-454-7271 or by using our online signup form.

Information provided will not be released to third parties and will only be used for the purpose of emergency notifications in Canyon County