State senator, leaders work to simplify emergency alert system

February 04, 2011|By Dustin Grove (grove@wsbt.com) | South Bend

Navigating through this week's blizzard wasn't just dangerous for drivers. For some, understanding the conditions and travel restrictions was confusing.

“It confused me because I didn’t know what each one meant and if I was going to get in trouble driving,” said Rosanne Mroczkiewicz of South Bend.

“It should be uniform from county to county through the whole state,” said her husband, Ken.

Turns out Senator Tom Wyss of Fort Wayne plans to introduce a bill into the state legislature that would do just that.

“This is something that really needs to be addressed...that’s why I’m going to introduce legislation that hopefully will be done here in the next couple of weeks to go to a standardized system,” Wyss told Ft. Wayne television station, WANE-TV.

The Indiana Department of Homeland Security has a standardized emergency level system in place. But it’s currently not mandatory for counties in Indiana to follow it.

Bill Zimmerman, director of St. Joseph County’s Emergency Management Agency, said he and others are aware of the confusion.

“That has been brought up a couple times - emergency management directors and the staff at the state know there's a lot of confusion out there,” said Zimmerman, who added that state and local officials have been and continue to take a look at the issue.

“Our mayors, our commissioners, our leadership at the state, the governor, want to make sure people are getting the right information to be safe. That's the number one priority. So if we have to do something to fix it, whether someone introduces a bill, that's great that that person is stepping up to do that. But it's already in the works to make sure it's clear to the citizens, because it's irrelevant and doesn't work if people don't understand it,” said Zimmerman.

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