The City of Plainview is soliciting residents to register for its emergency alert system.
The city had used “Code Red” for many years before switching over to “Everbridge,” said Assistant City Manager Andrew Freeman.
“It’s more user friendly with different options for email, texts, phone calls,” Freeman said.
In addition to emergency notifications, the system also sends out information on road closures, weather updates, and community events, said Freeman.
“Streets, public works, law enforcement, Fire, EMS, is going to be incorporated, as well as the emergency notifications such as some type of chemical spill or something dangerous,” said Captain Derrick McPherson, Plainview’s Emergency Management Coordinator.
“This is for all the citizens. If you sign up you’ll be alerted if you feel like there’s any kind of danger,” stated McPherson.
“If citizens don’t sign up, it’s not going to work, it won’t be useful,” McPherson added.
He said residents would be able to text a keyword to a certain number, and receive details on those events as planning progressed.
“You may not be around any kind of radio or television (during an emergency),” McPherson explained.
“You can be contacted several different ways. You can get emails, you can get telephone calls, and you can get text messages. We prefer text messages first to go out, then the emails, then the telephone numbers, but those are three different ways of contacting our citizens,” said McPherson.
Freeman said officials have had a hard time getting new users to register for the new alert system.
The City has “a little over 10,000 ‘911’ numbers just to call people,” Freeman explained, but officials hoped residents would sign up so alerts “can get to them if they aren’t by their phones.”
McPherson stated that around 1,400 residents have signed up for alerts, out of a population of approximately 22,000.
Only those who live or work in Plainview can sign up.
McPherson said the program launched in December.
For information on how to sign up, click here.