Contra Costa County Phone Emergency Warning System Tested Monday Evening

CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, CA -- A test of the phones portion of the Telephone Emergency Notification System in Contra Costa County is planned to be conducted Monday evening, according to sheriff's officials.

The test will be conducted between 5:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. April 10 around four refineries.

At 5:30 p.m. the area around the Dow Chemical facility in the Pittsburg/Antioch area will be tested.

At 6 p.m. the area around the Shell refinery in the Martinez/Pacheco area will be tested.

The last two tests will be 30 minutes apart starting at 6:30 p.m. around the Phillips 66 refinery in the Rodeo area and then around the Chevron refinery in the Richmond/San Pablo area.

Maps of the test areas can be found at www.cococws.us, sheriff's officials said.

The test will include voice calls to landlines, voice calls to cellphones, text messages, and emails to addresses registered with the county's community warning system.

Sirens, the emergency alert system, weather radios, Facebook and the Twitter parts of the warning system will not be tested, according to sheriff's officials.

The tests are being done to check how well the system works. After the test, a sample of residents will be surveyed to find out how well it worked and the quality of calls.

The survey will be available at www.cococws.us.

The phone number that will be used in the test is 000-000-0000. Calls or messages to residents will say the call or message is only a test.

Bay City News contributed to this report/Image via Shutterstock