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Benicia Fire chief outlines emergency alerts, incident notifications and outreach channels
Summary
At a Venetia Industrial Safety Citizen Oversight Commission meeting, Fire Chief Josh Chadwick described six primary channels Benicia uses to reach residents — Alert Solano for life-safety alerts, a local incident-notification system for nonemergencies, the city website, social media, a weekly newsletter and in-person outreach.
Fire Department staff presented an overview of Benicia's public outreach and emergency-notification systems on the commission's agenda, emphasizing distinct uses for each channel and steps to avoid "alert fatigue." Chief Josh Chadwick, who gave the presentation, said it responds to a March request for information on how the city communicates with residents.
Chadwick said the city uses six primary channels. "Alert Solano is our primary emergency notification platform," he said, adding it is reserved for incidents that require immediate public action, such as evacuations or shelter-in-place orders. He said the system can reach residents through home and business phones, mobile devices and text messages and is deliberately limited to emergency use to prevent residents from ignoring critical messages.
For nonemergency incidents, Chadwick said the city operates a Benicia incident notification system created in 2021 that sends text or email notices about events such as routine refinery flaring or drift smoke. He said residents can sign up through the fire department's public outreach page on the city website.
Chadwick also described the city website (www.ci.benicia.ca.us) as "the central information hub" that hosts registration pages, press releases, agendas, minutes and a public information bank for documents such as root-cause analyses. He said social media (departmental Facebook and Instagram pages and Nextdoor) reaches additional audiences and supports two-way engagement, while the weekly newsletter "City of Benicia This Week" provides longer-form updates and is archived online.
Commissioners asked how the platforms interoperate; Chadwick said using social media alongside alerts is standard protocol but that Alert Solano does not automatically publish to Nextdoor. A commissioner noted a public-facing zoning map available at protect.genasys.com and the city said a similar local evacuation-zoning tool is nearly ready for public rollout.
Chadwick highlighted in-person outreach (farmers market booths, station visits) as an important complement to digital channels. He said certain public-information tasks — for example, notifying users when new documents are uploaded to the public information bank — would require coordination with the city's IT staff.
The presentation concluded with commissioners suggesting expanded outreach to reach more residents and ideas for adding sign-ups to utility bills or other mass mailings. No action was taken; staff said it would follow up with IT and share the evacuation-zone tool when it is ready.
