WHEN 911 CALLS YOU.

• Author: Titus, Stephen
• Position: Brief Article - Statistical Data Included

In an emergency -- flood, fire, car wreck -- dialing 911 usually brings help. But what if 911 could dial you before problems arose?

Dubbed reverse 911, this technology already may be in your local emergency dispatch center. Originally designed to alert residents near nuclear power plants of a leak, the system has been taken one step further in Fort Collins, which suffered several floods during the past few years. The Emergency Management Weather Information Network (EMWIN) combines reverse 911 with a weather- and stream-flow monitoring system and National Weather Service forecasts. It pages emergency personnel when city weather conditions are headed for trouble. EMWIN downloads this information onto a detailed city map that can be expanded to pinpoint a single business, house, school or government building.

Emergency personnel pinpoint an area of potential trouble, dial one or 1,000 phone numbers there, and alert residents and businesses of impending danger -- in Spanish or English.

"We've tried to take existing technology and put it on steroids," said Glenn Levy, Fort Collins' emergency management coordinator and a battalion chief for the city's fire department. "Not everyone is always listening to the radio or watching...