Jefferson County emergency management staff told the Board of County Commissioners at a work session that the countys opt‑in system for public warnings, Lookout Alerts, performed well during a full‑scale exercise last week but that actual resident enrollment remains low.

"We use a system called Lookout Alerts within Jefferson County. Lookout Alerts is our opt in reverse 9 1 1 system," said Nate Whittington, emergency management staff, describing how the county targets alerts to polygons or countywide areas.

County emergency managers showed commissioners delivery data pulled from last weeks exercise to quantify system performance. The exercise targeted roughly 6,200 contacts across all notification modes. Text messages reached 3,094 targeted contacts and were "99.1% delivered successfully," Whittington said. Email reached about 3,316 addresses with a 69.7% successful delivery rate; officials reported 974 messages missing or having invalid addresses. The voice channel attempted about 6,157 calls with an 84.2% success rate; staff recorded about 2,090 live answers and 3,100 calls that went to voicemail. The county logged 11,211 minutes of voice notification time for that event.

Why it matters: if only a fraction of residents are signed up, broadcast systems will miss many people in an actual emergency. Whittington told the commissioners that countywide opt‑in rates are uneven: Arvada had about 13,855 opt‑ins (roughly 11% of local population), Lakewood about 13,000 (8%), and the countywide opt‑in rate was roughly 12% of an estimated 539,945 residents.

Whittington said those participation numbers motivated a countywide outreach push. "We are going to use next month, in working with public health and their PIOs, JCSO and their PIOs, GEFCOM and their PIOs, we all collectively going to come around the concept of Be Your Own Hero," he said, describing a planned September emergency‑preparedness blitz that will promote signing up for Lookout Alerts, Smart 911 and other preparedness steps.

Staff also discussed redundancy and gaps. Jefferson County uses the federal Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) to send blanket cell‑phone messages; Whittington noted occasional "bleed over," for example when mountain residents received wildfire alerts issued in neighboring counties. He described efforts to improve delivery to phones set to Do Not Disturb, including advising residents to add county numbers to a phones favorites list and configuring the system to call repeatedly when needed.

Commissioners asked about outdoor sirens, a question raised after recent high‑profile events in other states. Whittington cautioned that sirens have limitations in foothills terrain and echoing can confuse residents about the origin and meaning of tones; he emphasized that sirens require clear, preexisting public education so residents know what a given tone signifies.

Whats next: staff will coordinate the "Be Your Own Hero" messaging across county public information officers and partner agencies, push signups for Smart 911 and Lookout Alerts, and use the data from last weeks exercise to target improvements to address lists and delivery gaps.

Speakers quoted or cited in this article are from the county work session records and include the people listed in the speakers array below.