Do 'Be on the lookout' Silver Alert warnings work?

When an 86-year-old Glen Rock man disappeared after leaving a relative’s home one evening two years ago, his family searched, police searched and — in a novel approach at the time — motorists across New Jersey were asked to be on the lookout.



TARIQ ZEHAWI / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

A silver alert on a sign at Routes 4 and 208 in Fair Lawn.

 An alert comes about every two days.

Signs up and down New Jersey’s highways the next morning flashed the words “Silver Alert” along with a description and license plate of Edmund Ommundsen’s car. A woman responded, informing police that he had asked her for directions to Hoboken the previous night.

Ommundsen, who had become disoriented from an undiagnosed infection, was found the following night by a Connecticut state highway trooper when his car ran out of gas on an interstate near Andover, almost 150 miles away.

While the woman’s report to police didn’t immediately lead to his rescue, Ommundsen’s son, Glenn, was grateful someone had noticed the signs and called authorities. As the 30 hours of worry went on before his father was found, the family was comforted to know “there were other eyes out there looking for my dad,” he said.

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Do 'Be on the lookout' Silver Alert warnings work?