Alert SA replacement app won’t be ready for start of bushfire season
A REPLACEMENT for the failed Alert SA App, which crashed on a day of catastrophic fire danger and put lives in danger, won’t be ready by the start of bushfire season.
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SOUTH Australians will be forced to fall back on old-fashioned sources of emergency information this bushfire season, as the State Government confirms a replacement for the Alert SA app that infamously melted down in dangerous conditions won’t be ready for summer.
The former government was embarrassingly forced to tell people to stop using the Alert SA app in January, after a string of glitches that included dispatching misleading information or failing completely during conditions that were described as the worst SA had faced in years.
The app had been downloaded by 180,000 people and was supposed to deliver tailored and localised information about developing bushfire threats and other emergency operations.
Fine print in State Budget documents released earlier this month show the “technical solution” for a new app is to be developed in the coming 12 months, at a cost of $1.5 million.
The new State Government also remains in legal dispute with developers of the failed Alert SA app, Ripe Intel, to recover some of an estimated $1 million loss to taxpayers.
Emergency Services Minister Corey Wingard has confirmed to The Advertiser that the new app is expected be operational at some point next year, technology allowing.
“The original Alert SA App failed under the former Labor Government who scrapped it entirely,” Mr Wingard said.
“This Government recognised the seriousness of the action taken by the former government, and that’s why we committed to funding a new app.”
He said community safety would remain “paramount” this summer.
“In the interim, emergency service agencies will utilise social media, TV, radio and other networks,” Mr Wingard said.
Alert SA was developed as a mobile app and website service managed by the SA Fire and Emergency Services Commission.
SAFECOM oversees the CFS, MFS and SES and is now facing a review that could shift some of its functions back to the frontline forces after chief executive Malcolm Jackman requested and was granted a request to work part-time.
Visitors to the Alert SA website are currently met with a message informing them the service had “experienced significant performance issues” which could not be resolved.
The Alert SA app suffered two critical service disruptions on severe fire days last season.
In October last year, an independent review was conducted in a bid to stop future breakdowns.
In January this year, SAFECOM held an urgent meeting with the developer after another failure as multiple fires raged, including a huge blaze at Sherwood in the state’s South-East.
That app costs taxpayers $284,000 per year and was launched in 2015.
The former Labor government then decided to decommission Alert SA and have it removed from app stores, and admitted the failure could have put lives at risk.
Some agencies were then left with limited public information and warnings capabilities and have been fast-tracking their own systems to deliver alerts and other public information.
The public is encouraged and advised to seek multiple information sources and not to rely on a single source of information in respect to emergencies and public warnings.
The State Budget allocates $2.6 million in the current financial year, including $1.5 million of investing expenditure, “to develop the technical solution”.
Ongoing funding of $866,000 or more is included in every subsequent year for its operation once the new app is working.