Getting the latest information to the public during an emergency has gotten easier for authorities with the Alert Iowa emergency system. The service can initiate a reverse 911 call or send a text message. Sara Anderson with Carroll County Emergency Management encourages people to sign up for the service and says you won’t be bombarded with alerts from outside your area.
As an example, during the 2010 ice storm local authorities would have been able to alert specific areas to the restoration of their electricity. Anderson says it is up to the discretion of local authorities as to what types of messages they send out, but users can choose what type of weather alerts they receive and by what means.
In the event of an emergency the Alert Iowa system also can help out responding authorities.
To sign up for Alert Iowa visit the Carroll County website at www.co.carroll.ia.us and look for a link to the Emergency/Weather Alert Notification System near the middle of the page. The latest message which alerted people in the city of Carroll that the water boil advisory was lifted only had a 56% success rate based upon landline phone numbers downloaded from the white pages. For the best chance of success, Anderson says users should save the following numbers to their phones.
