After more than a month of organization and testing, the Everbridge emergency alert system goes live today in Upson County. Funded by a federal grant, the system will send emergency alerts to every citizen or business with a listed landline telephone number in the county 9-1-1 system. It will also send text, voice or email messages to those who sign up for the program and want to list their cell phone to receive messages. To date, more than 600 people have registered to put their cell phones into the system.
Over the last two weeks, the system has been sending test messages to the numbers in its system. Martha Anne McCarty, Chief of Operations for the Upson County Emergency Management Agency, said the emergency alert system uses the number 706-647-5600 to send the alerts, and anyone receiving that number on their Caller ID should recognize it and realize the alert system is calling.
“Everbridge will ring your cell phone and provide a message about what is occurring, be it severe weather, utility outages, road closures, evacuations due a hazardous material incident, crime alerts, missing persons, whatever the problem may be,” said McCarty.
Those who have not registered their cell phones yet can still do so by going to the Upson County website at www.upsoncountyga.org. Click on the registration link, and once there, step by step instructions will be listed on the page.
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