The Palo Alto Fire Department sent the AlertSCC message on Friday, Oct. 11, about the next day's pancake breakfast in Rinconada Park, which raised money for Project Safety Net.

When 27,000 Palo Alto residents received an emergency alert telling them about an upcoming fire department pancake breakfast, some questioned whether the alert system should be used to promote events.

"One of our concerns was that we were landing a helicopter at Walter Hays Elementary School in a residential neighborhood on a Saturday. We were concerned that we would get lots of calls to 911 that would jam up the lines. We thought that we would do the alert on Friday to not wake people up," he said.

"I was at a meeting when this occurred, and several phones rang. I opened mine thinking it was an emergency. If this continues, we will start ignoring the messages, and like the boy who called wolf, we won't know when there is a real emergency," a resident wrote.

Some residents said the alert came across as a promotional announcement, but Nickel pointed out there was nothing wrong with sending it out, since there are two separate databases for AlertSCC: one for local events and emergencies, and a separate "reverse 911" database that is restricted to emergencies only. But messages from both databases arrive with the header AlertSCC, making it impossible for people to distinguish between the two.

Nickel said he understands why people thought the message was an inappropriate use of the system. If he had it to do over again, the alert would state in the opening sentence that a helicopter would be landing at the site, he said.

In the past when helicopters or fire trucks were used for events or trainings and alerts did not go out, 911 lines did get jammed by curious callers, he said. But this time, there were no calls to 911 asking about the helicopter.

The pancake breakfast was a success, Nickel said. More than 1,000 people attended to consume food prepared by Facebook chefs, he said.

"We have learned there are other technologies to use for event notification, such as Facebook, Twitter and Nixel. We had that conversation, and if we did this tomorrow, we would use those other community-communications technologies," Nickel said.

Fire department defends pancake-breakfast alert

Helicopter landing prompted emergency notice, chief says