March 11, 2020
By: Dwayne Page
During severe weather providing the public with life-saving alerts and warnings quickly is imperative and the tornado last week in neighboring Putnam County underscores the need for all to be vigilant.
(Click link below to register for weather alerts)
In DeKalb County, residents have access to a service called Hyper-Reach, a state of the art mass emergency notification system, designed specifically for public safety, according to Brad Mullinax, Director of the DeKalb Emergency Communications District (E-911). Through Hyper-Reach residents can get automatic tornado warning alerts over landline telephones or cell phones the moment they are issued for DeKalb County.
Landline phones are automatically registered but weather alerts to mobile phones are only included by enrolling in the system.
“When the National Weather Service issues a tornado warning it is based on a polygon so it may be for only one area of the county. You may see on TV that DeKalb County is under a tornado warning but it may really be only for the northern or southern portion of the county. It may not always affect the entire county. This system will notify hundreds of people within a minute. It is very fast in the notification process and I encourage everyone to sign up for this,” said Mullinax.
Charlie Parker, DeKalb County Emergency Management Agency Coordinator, said he also recommends people registering for the service.
“Even though there are multiple ways of getting weather alerts including from TV and radio, storms can cause interruption in service. Even with the storm last week, Comcast and other cable and TV providers were down so you can’t always count on those for the information you need. We strongly encourage everyone to have more than one way of getting storm alerts. You can also get a weather alert radio. Those are battery operated and programmable for your county. There are apps you can download on your phone. Red Cross also has an app you can download. The biggest thing is don’t get complacent. Sometimes we are bombarded with threats and warnings and get to the place where we don’t pay attention to them. When it comes to severe weather always take it seriously,” said Parker.
The service is free and you may register for the weather alerts by visiting www.dekalb911.org and clicking the link or by clicking the link below.
“There is a link on our website (dekalb 911.org) to click for a community weather alert sign up. It will allow you to register a cell phone. If you do have a home landline telephone your number is already registered by your house number in the system and you will automatically get the weather alerts without any further action from you. If you do not have home landline telephone service or if you want to register your cell phone in addition to your home landline phone you can go to our signup page and do that. It will make a phone call to you with a pre-recorded message and or it will also send you a text message or an email to notify you as well in the event there is a tornado warning that has been issued for the affected area,” said Mullinax
If anyone has questions or needs help programming their weather radio contact Charlie Parker at dekalbtnema@gmail.com., DeKalb Emergency Management on facebook, or at the Smithville Fire Department at 615-597-4141.