More residents signing up for Voyent Alert as City of Kamloops plans more education on app’s benefits

The City of Kamloops brought in Voyent Alert in Oct. 2021, following the Canada Day fire in Juniper Ridge. It conducts regular tests each year and Rodrigue notes the city is still adapting the way it uses Voyent Alert to send out emergency notifications to residents.

According to the city, more than 103,000 notifications were sent out through 48 different alerts in seven different zone’s during the water main break in May, but not everyone got the alerts. Rodrigue said more education is needed as not everyone knew about the system or how to sign up.

“My best advice is to register for Voyent Alert and the biggest takeaway on that is you don’t need the app,” Rodrigue said. “You can register to get phone calls to a land line or a cell phone, emails or text messages.”

“If you have loved ones in your life, you can put their locations on your Voyent so you can get those alerts and help your parents, grandparents in that situation. You can help them register for a phone call, if that’s their preferred method.”

With more than 4,000 new registrations for Voyent Alert following the east Kamloops water main break, Rodrigue notes there are about 36,000 registrations to date. Efforts to increase that number will continue with educational campaigns around the year to ensure people aren’t scrambling in an emergency.

“Right now, we are committed to using Voyent for evacuation alerts, evacuation orders and unplanned water disruptions,” Rodrigue said. “To expand the system has pros and cons but we don’t want people to get over alerted to the point where they take the app off their phone and then they’re not getting emergency communications.”

“It is our primary ability to provide geo-located information that is relevant to you and your location in an emergency. It allows us to provide updates to you and give you the information you need for your location.”

More information about Voyent Alert in the City of Kamloops can be found here.

by Victor Kaisar

More residents signing up for Voyent Alert as City of Kamloops plans more education on app’s benefits

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