Petersburg’s mobile communications unit will be taken to higher ground during a tsunami so local officials can stay in contact if power were to go down or the downtown police station could not be reached. (Photo courtesy of Petersburg Borough)

Many Petersburg residents received emergency alerts on their phones early Tuesday morning about a tsunami warning. Some residents sought higher ground while others just slept through the night.

So, how does the local emergency response leader think it went in Petersburg? Sandy Dixson says “pretty well”.

Dixson is the Fire- EMS Director and the Emergency Manager for the Petersburg Borough. She told KFSK’s Angela Denning that, like many others, she woke up early Tuesday to a message on her phone from the statewide alert system.

This old siren is located on top of Petersburg’s middle school and is the town’s only emergency siren. With funding from a NOAA tsunami grant, two new sirens are to be installed in Petersburg by the end of March. (Photo courtesy of the Petersburg Borough)

Petersburg has only one emergency siren located on top of the middle school but the alarm cannot be heard all over town. With funding from a NOAA tsunami grant, two new sirens are to be installed by the end of March. One will be near the ball fields and one near Scow Bay, which the borough hopes will reach more residents on the outskirts of town.

To receive emergency warnings by phone or e-mail, you can register through a link on KFSK’s website or through the borough’s website. The Code Red system does not sell your identity information to marketers.

Some statistics from this Tuesday: The local response system called 2,879 numbers and there was a 78 percent connection rate. There were also 768 e-mails that successfully went through and 513 texts.