Mayor Beutler, I know that wasn't you on the phone last night after I went to bed, but I'm holding you responsible. The call I received came way too late, and my call wasn't even that late. John Spatz got his call just after 3:00am. Had that happened to me I would have driven straight over to Mayor Beutler's house and ... well, no, I probably wouldn't have done anything. But I would have been pissed. I was angry enough as it was.
I understand why Lincoln uses robocalls as part of its emergency management strategy. They can be a quick and relatively cheap way to get vital information out to the public. Fair enough. But nothing -- NOTHING -- about a forecast that calls for four or five inches of snow overnight requires a phone call between 10:00pm and 8:00am. A tornado warning is one thing; a few flakes aren't going to kill anybody who is snuggled into their bed.
I suppose City officials will try to claim that the information provided in the phone calls was important. Baloney. Not a single word in the recorded message was relevant to me or my family. Nor, I suspect, was it relevant to the vast majority of you -- at least not in the middle of the night. A snow emergency announcement just isn't very important. I can't park in certain places? No biggie. It's certainly not something I need to be woken up for. Particularly since the snow emergency was announced at 1:00pm on Sunday, and it was broadcast through every media outlet in and around Lincoln.
Look, the point is that waking people up in the middle of the night to tell them "Hey! It's snowing outside!" is just plain dumb. That whole October 1997 thing? Yeah, now that was a snowstorm to wake up people in the middle of the night for. But that was unique because of the storm's scale, its damage, and -- this is important -- the fact that it was way more feisty than what forecasters predicted. Exploding trees, downed power lines, and general chaos are worthy of sounding the alarms; five inches of the fluffy stuff, not so much.
Mayor Beutler's crew blew this one and he owes Lincolnites an apology, along with a clear explanation of the policies he is putting in place to ensure this goofiness doesn't happen again. Is it really a big deal? No, not in the grand scheme of things. But these little annoyances go a long way toward shaping public perceptions of local government. This is easy to fix. Fix it.
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How did the mayor get your phone number?
This was my first robo-call. When did these become a thing?
I have two phone lines (landlines): a home number, and an office line. They are not tied to the same account - the only thing in common is my address.
My robo-call came on the office number about 3:00 pm yesterday afternoon. My home number never got a call.
I never remember opting-in for something like this. When all do they plan to use it?
Whoa. I had to look at the address bar again to make sure I hadn’t stumbled upon a certain “Winter” complaint blog…
:lol Randay 😉
As I posted ‘elsewhere’, I’m glad that we have this feature. Yes the timing issue was messed up, but it was not planned… and it’s a new system that has hiccups. And though the information is not important to you, it is to others, who may not even fully understand what snow routes are or that you will get a ticket if you park on them (like my next door neighbor). I get the outrage about the hour, but really only if it was planned that way. I do not get the outrage that the phone calls are going out.
Heh, fair enough randy 😊
I’m pretty sensitive to late-night phone calls. I have a strong internal association between late night calls and personal tragedy. I get cranky with late callers no matter who they are. I blame the shot of adrenaline that jolts me awake.
In my defense, it was in part because of rants like mine that the City took the issue so seriously. They hopped on it and got the company to take full responsibility. That’s precisely what I was after.
I don’t necessarily dislike the phone calls, Stacy. I think they have the potential to be a great service. I do wish they were more customizable—I personally couldn’t care less about snow emergencies, for example—but that customizability probably comes at a prohibitively high cost. For now I’ll relax knowing (hoping?) they’ve at least got the matter of call timing worked out.
I got my Phone Call at 9:55pm Sunday night right before the 10pm news. I heard basically the same thing on Channel 8 Eyewitness News at 10pm.
I assume these calls only went out to those with landlines. Not that I want to after this, but is there a place to opt in if one doesn’t have a landline?
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