E-911 pulls plug on too slow storm warning system

May 4– Hardin County E-911 abruptly pulled the plug on its phone-based storm warning system Tuesday.

The Inspiron Logistics system is designed to send voice, email and text message warnings of impending weather events such as tornados and severe thunderstorms.

In practice, voice message recipients too often received their phone call warning long after the weather event had passed. Text and emails, however, were typically more timely.

Users received electronic messages and phone calls Tuesday evening advising that the contract with Inspiron has been canceled and the system deactivated. The system was turned on in late February.

Hardin County E-911 Director David Alexander posted this statement on The Courier’s Facebook page:

 "We simply wanted to provide an additional...enhanced weather warning system to the people of our county, but recommend cell phone users to look at one of the free services from one of the weather providers or news stations. Thank you to those who were so understanding as we attempted to make the system work.

"It was investigated from the end of February until now...it does not work here due to phone infrastructure and the places it does work takes an extended period to deliver a battery of voice calls. This was confirmed by engineers at CenturyLink and AT&T. Inspiron tried various ways to make their system work, but finally reached a point where they said they had done all they could do."