'Alert Seattle' system under review after Bite of Seattle shooting

Seattle relies on Alert Seattle to send out critical safety messages. That system was not used during July's bite of Seattle shooting, and now a full review is underway to figure out why people weren't informed at a number of levels. Fox 13's Dan Griffin shares how it's supposed to get information to you and how to sign up. Inside Seattle's Emergency Operations Center, city officials can mobilize fast to send warnings directly to your phone. We wanted to know more about how it works. It's a way for the community to get informed and know about what's happening and what actions to take. Critical warnings sent straight to you. You have to opt in, right? You're not automatically in the system. Tate Thatch trains city departments like police and fire how to use Alert Seattle. We do about two to three Alert Seattle trainings a year. Alert Seattle messages are drafted by city departments to warn you about earthquakes, outages and safety threats by text, email or phone call. Yet officials say only 83,000 people are signed up as of now. The World Cup where you had a massive amount of people in the city and the games, there's so many events happening and so we were activated for the World Cup. But when gunshots rang out at the Bight of Seattle this summer, the system went unused. After heavy public backlash, Mayor Katie Wilson requested an investigation by the Office of Inspector General to determine why the public was without safety information for nearly five hours, including no Alert Seattle messages. In September, she signed an executive order to overhaul emergency response protocols, including how Alert Seattle is triggered. People can sign up at Seattle.gov slash alert. Thatch says Alert Seattle sign-up spiked after the shooting. It's free and takes seconds, as city leaders vow to never leave residents in the dark again. Yes, only more training and more outreach and engagement from now on. Now, I signed up for Alert Seattle fairly quickly with calls, texts, and emails enabled. We've got information on how you can do the same on Fox13Seattle.com and the Fox local app. Reporting downtown, Dan Griffin, Fox 13 News.