The Utah Division of Emergency Management discontinued the use of the Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system to target alerts at Utah’s state line areas on Monday, the Utah Division of Emergency Management released in a statement.
“A new virus required new thinking and new ideas to combat it,” said Joe Dougherty, spokesman for the Utah Division of Emergency Management. “Utah was the first state to attempt to use a WEA to alert motorists entering the state to fill out a health declaration form at entry.utah.gov. It was important for Utah to try every good idea to stop the spread of COVID-19 in our state. Innovations don’t always work out exactly how you hope, however.”
The discontinued use of the system came following glitches that many Utah residents experienced firsthand. “We have compassion for the residents who live well outside of the intended alerting area, some of whom were 80 miles away,” Dougherty said. “We heard that some of them received the alert more than 15 times. The system is not supposed to work that way. Phones are supposed to recognize the alert no more than once per alert message.”
According to the statement, instead of a Wireless Emergency Alert, the Utah Department of Transportation will deploy variable message signs that indicate motorists should visit entry.utah.gov. These signs will display a message similar to the WEA system. In addition, airline passengers at the Salt Lake City International Airport will continue to receive a postcard with a QR code and link to the health declaration form.
“The future for the technology is bright,” said Dougherty “Our federal partners are working with wireless carriers so that, in the future, alerts will be accurate by a tenth of a mile. We look forward to that day. We look forward to continued conversations with our federal partners and the wireless carriers as we work toward more precise alerting in the future. In the meantime, the technology is still available for AMBER Alerts and other emergency messages that may need to be sent to wider areas of the state.”
What areas were alerted? See the map below.
I-15 at the Arizona border
US-89 north of Kanab
US-491/191 at Monticello
I-70 at the Colorado border
US-40 at the Colorado border
I-80 at the Wyoming border
I-15 at the Idaho border
I-84 at the Idaho border
I-80 at the Nevada border
