Caldwell County Fiscal Court and Caldwell County Emergency Management have announced the Code Red mass notifications system is being replaced with Hyper-Reach to help bring the same life-saving capability to the citizens of the county.
Emergency Management Director Joey McCaslin says they expect the service to be fully operational by October 1st.
click to download audioHe says they have received positive feedback from other counties that use the Hyper-Reach notification system.
click to download audioThe other thing McCaslin likes about Hyper-Reach is that when the notifications go out it is from a local telephone number.
click to download audioHe says Hyper-Reach will provide rapid notifications of hazardous and urgent situations using a mix of telephone calls, text messages, email messages, and even TTY/TDD service for the hearing impaired. He adds this system sends thousands of messages to geographically targeted households in seconds and can simultaneously deliver them to an even broader audience via social media, as well as sending broadcast messages to most current mobile telephones (made since 2011) in an affected area by providing access to FEMA’s Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system. If you have an Alexa device, he says it can also send the alert through it.
He says it will be easy for citizens to set up the Hyper-Reach notification alerts.
click to download audioMcCaslin added they will probably get into all the ins and outs at the end of next week and start advertising and pushing the Hyper-Reach notification alerts.
McCaslin indicates their job is to protect the citizens of Caldwell County as effectively and cost-effectively as possible.
click to download audioAccording to McCaslin, they plan to use the service primarily for alerts about weather and environmental hazards, criminal activity and missing persons. He notes landline phones are automatically enrolled for community alerts, but weather alerts to landline phones and community and weather alerts to VoIP phones, mobile phones, and email addresses are only included when people enroll. McCaslin and county officials encourage residents and people who work in Caldwell County are encouraged to enroll now (using a county address) either by calling or texting “Alert” to 270-398-7808 or by going to the website: http://hyper-reach.com/kycaldwellsignup.html.
McCaslin says citizens can get emergency alerts via their Alexa-enabled smart speakers just by saying “Alexa, enable Hyper-Reach” and following the Alexa-provided instructions. With more than 50 million US households using Alexa devices, there are obviously hundreds of county residents with Alexa units.
In addition, citizens can download the Hyper-Reach Anywhere app on their smartphone that allows individual citizens to manage and monitor the alerts they receive, both for their home and office addresses and for other addresses they care about such as those of elderly relatives or friends.
