DeKalb County is urging residents to sign up for the county’s new reverse 911 system after the county swapped providers.
DeKalb County EMA Director Charlie Parker said the county swapped systems as the new provider offers more services. Parker said the county is encouraging residents to sign up with their cell phone numbers and addresses.
“In order to get notifications for several things, from missing persons, to storm alerts, or things that might be going on in your neighborhood or in our county, we are just encouraging everybody to go to the link and sign up,” Parker said.
Parker said the system has already worked well, as law enforcement was able to find a missing person just 15 minutes after notifications were sent out. Parker said the system sends out alerts faster than the weather app and social media.
“The way this new system is set up, it also alerts our emergency responders in the county,” Parker said. “So if we have an event going on, all of our first responders get notified in the county, so that gives them a little extra time and notice. Our county is heavily run on volunteers with, you know, several of the services, so it gets them a faster response and, you know, an early warning, I guess it is, to try to help, you know, our community.”
Parker said the system can send alerts to targeted neighborhoods instead of issuing notifications countywide. He added that the new platform also allows residents to enter important information that could assist first responders during an emergency.
“It also allows us to gather some information for our dispatch center for 911,” Parker said. “For instance, if you install a tornado shelter in your house, when you fill out your information, and you can put as much information as you want in there or a little, but you could put if you do install a tornado shelter, you can log that, that will log into dispatch so that if we were to have an event, we know where the shelters are at. In the aftermath of it, we know where to come and look.”
The new system will also notify neighborhoods about sex offenders moving into the neighborhood. DeKlab County Commissioners passed a resolution to add the notifications to the system. DeKalb County is still working with the state to get the list of sex offenders implemented into the system.
Parker said residents can sign up online using the following link: https://www.smart911.com/smart911/ref/reg.action?pa=dekalb911