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Portales unveils drought-contingency notification protocol, aims to notify elected officials within an hour
Summary
Staff presented a draft notification flowchart for drought or contamination events that would authorize the city manager to act immediately and notify the elected body within about 60 minutes; HyperReach and targeted lists for major water users were highlighted.
Portales staff presented a draft drought-contingency notification protocol intended to speed response to sudden shortages, contamination or other events that threaten water supply. The protocol would empower the city manager to take immediate emergency steps and then notify elected officials and key stakeholders.
The presentation proposed that the city manager "take immediate steps to reduce the effects of the shortage," activate public-works and utilities response teams as appropriate, implement applicable restrictions and issue public advisories such as boil-water notices. The protocol calls for council notification "as soon as applicable" and suggested notifying the elected body within 60 minutes when possible, followed by periodic updates (about every four hours) while the situation is active.
The plan also defines a chain of command for successive backups in the city-manager absence (community services director, then library/human resources directors) and emphasizes single-source messaging from the city manager’s office to keep public communications consistent. Staff recommended using HyperReach to deliver citywide alerts and creating targeted notification trees for major water users — examples named during discussion included the school system, university, water co-op and local hospitals.
Board members praised the HyperReach capability but noted near-term work remains: agencies on target lists must define their internal response actions (the "what do I do when I get this notification" problem) and staff agreed to update the protocol to show those target groups. Staff said recordkeeping and documentation for inspections or audits should be maintained because all communications are inspectable.
Next steps: Staff will revise the protocol to include a targeted-notification tree for major users, add a draft distribution list and return with updated slides.
