Up until now, if an inmate escaped, officials at the Graterford, Pa., prison would alert residents and businesses by sounding a whistle or calling only those people who live in the immediate area.

But the state Department of Corrections has introduced a high-speed, statewide telephone system at all of its institutions, said Gerald Galinski, Graterford's acting public information officer.

Locally, the Community Alert Network system, by an Albany, N.Y. company, will automatically notify residents and businesses within two miles of the Graterford prison in an emergency.

"Our system is capable of making 15,000 calls per hour," said Ken Baechel, CAN's president and chief executive officer.

About 7,814 residents live within two miles of Graterford, according to 2000 Census data analyzed by Sean Metrick, a county planner.

At Graterford, CAN will replace the manual telephone system where only a limited number of neighbors in the immediate vicinity were notified of emergencies, Galinski said.

The old phone system was slower and didn't work during power failures, he said.

The new CAN system will notify residents and businesses within a two-mile radius of the prison in Schwenksville, Graterford, Limerick, Skippack, Creamery and Collegeville, Galinski said.

If CAN must call neighbors, they will hear the digitized voice of a prison official in a recorded message, he said.

The CAN system will contact residents with published telephone numbers as well as any resident with a non-published telephone number who writes to the prison and asks to be contacted, Baechel said.

Several Pennsylvania prisons have already used the CAN system, but this is the first time all state prisons in Pennsylvania will be using it, Baechel said. Other states using CAN in their prison systems include Washington and Rhode Island, Baechel said.

In Pennsylvania, each state prison will pay a $1,200 retainer fee each year plus 25 cents for each attempted telephone call, Baechel said.

CAN is designed to make three attempts to notify residents within 2-miles of the prison and fax a report to Graterford officials within 15 minutes listing which residents were contacted, Galinski said.