Folks without landlines may be out of loop in emergency

Jolee Mercer, a veteran dispatcher with CRESA for 17 years, works the county sheriff calls, which as well includes BNSF, Camas police, Washougal police, Ridgefield police, La Center police, Battle Ground police at the CRESA office May 24, 2011 in Vancouver, Washington. In total, Mercer keeps track of 45 units.

The database are primarily landlines

Numbers in the database are primarily landlines. People with cellphones or those with VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) lines from a service provider other than Comcast must opt in to receive the alerts. That could be a problem as people shift away from landlines in favor of cellphones.

According to data published in March by the Pew Technology Center, 46 percent of adults in the United States own a smartphone, 41 percent own some other kind of cellphone, and 12 percent have no cellphone. Pew reported in 2010 that only 74 percent of homes had a landline phone, down from 97 percent in 2001.

According to CRESA, there are 487,000 phone lines in Clark County. About 65 percent of those are mobile, 23 percent are landline and 11 percent are VoIP.

John Wheeler, emergency management coordinator at CRESA, works with the community alert system. He said 3,329 phone numbers have registered for the service. In other words less than 1 percent of the 370,000 or so total cell and VoIP numbers in the county, he said.