Sheriff, police and city staff demo Zonehaven, Nixle/Everbridge and IPAWS; officials urge residents to subscribe

Lake County and Clear Lake public‑safety officials gave a joint presentation to the council on the city’s emergency alerting tools and urged residents to sign up for localized notifications.

Lauren Berlin, public information and community engagement officer for the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, outlined three primary systems: Zonehaven for zone mapping and situational displays, LakeCo alerts (Nixle/Everbridge) for opt‑in text/email/phone notifications, and IPAWS/Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) for non‑subscription push notifications. "We have multi‑layered alerting services," Berlin told the council, and officials said they try to avoid sending duplicate notifications across platforms.

Chief White and Sheriff Martin described how Zonehaven is used on a first‑responder login to preload evacuation routes and dynamically estimate impacted daytime and nighttime populations and vehicle counts. Chief White said the tool allows responders to identify where to stage care and shelter resources and to split zones for more targeted messaging. Sheriff Martin added that in some rapidly evolving fires, door‑to‑door notification remains the primary option for imminent life‑safety threats and that real‑time, on‑the‑ground decisions govern whether a digital alert is sent.

Officials also acknowledged limitations: presenters said Zonehaven and other web apps can be slow or inaccessible during active incidents, and automated phone calls reach traditional copper landlines less reliably where voice‑over‑IP lines are used. On that point the sheriff told the council: "We can make automated phone calls to landlines that use traditional copper lines... if it's not an AT&T copper‑based landline... we may not be able to get that messaging unless they pre‑register." (Sheriff Martin)

Council members asked whether subscribing via Zonehaven automatically signs a resident up for localized Nixle/Everbridge alerts; presenters explained that subscribing to a zone links the user to the LakeCo alerts sign‑up and can be refined by zip code or multiple addresses.

Officials encouraged residents to pay attention to visual cues near them and to follow first‑responder instructions during an incident. They also said the county and city continue outreach and will refine messaging to reduce unnecessary alerts while ensuring serious incidents are widely communicated.

The item was informational; no formal council action was recorded beyond questions and direction to continue outreach.