Law enforcement agencies in Nebraska should take note of the assistance provided last week in Lincoln by a free national missing person alert system.

Lincoln police used the system for the first time when a 70-year-man, who may have dementia, wandered away from home.

Using satellite imagery, computers and an automated message, the system auto-dialed 1,600 phone calls to homes within a three-mile radius of the missing man’s home within five minutes.

Almost immediately police received four calls from people who said they had seen the man. The information helped police know which direction Sanchez had traveled.

In the end the man was found by someone who had seen his photo and read about him on JournalStar.com.

Nonetheless the incident demonstrated the value of the automated system in spreading notification about missing people. “It’s always gratifying when a service does exactly what it says it’s going to do,” said Lincoln Police Chief Tom Casady.

The system, known as “A Child is Missing,” fills a gap. The more well-known AMBER Alert system is not issued until three to five hours after an abduction.

“A Child Is Missing” assists in all missing person cases, including children who are lost, abducted, run away or adults who have Alzheimer’s or other special needs.

Creation of the system based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was spearheaded by Sherry Friedlander. “I did not have a missing child, just an idea to use technology to help law enforcement find missing children. I started very small by helping a couple law enforcement agencies in South Florida” Friedlander told a congressional committee last month.

Now the system is available to law enforcement agencies in all 50 states. But of an estimated 16,000 agencies in the country, only about 2,200 are set up to use the program, Friedlander said.

Friedlander founded the program in 1997. The number of cases handled by the system has jumped in the past few years as the system expanded. So far law enforcement agencies have given the system credit in writing for more than 335 safe assisted recoveries. About one-third of those came within the past year.

In addition to the recent case in Lincoln, the system also has been used in one case in Papillion and two cases in La Vista, including one case in January in which a 12-year-old went missing on a bitterly cold evening. La Vista police credited the system for the child’s recovery.

An effort currently is under way in Congress to provide federal funding for the program, which currently operates as a nonprofit organization.

But there’s no reason for local law enforcement agencies to wait on public funding. The program is available right now.