Greene County rolls out new emergency alert system

GREENE COUNTY, Va. (WVIR) - Greene County is making sure the people that live here stay up to date with a new alert system. All you need is your cellphone to sign up.

“Keeping people updated gives them information to make decisions that they need to make for themselves and their family,” Greene County Administrator Cathy Schafrik said.

A new mass-communications system called CivicReady is being rolled out in Greene County.

“It’s part of our overall communication strategy, to provide more tuned options so people can get the type of communications they want, and the way they want it, about the things they care about,” Schafrik said.

Schafrik says many have raised concerns about not getting information and updates in a timely manner.

“It gets lost in mass-communication, because you have to go through too much stuff you don’t care about, and you lose interest,” Schafrik said.

Now, with the new system, you can customize your notifications, meaning updates how you want them and when you want them.

“I feel like this is a critical piece that has been missing, to allow us to provide an opportunity for people to go in, they can choose how they want to get it; text, email, even a phone call,” Schafrik said.

Once you sign up, you can put in your address and opt-in to get updates that specifically affect your neighborhood.

“Because they put their address in the system, we can use the GIS features to send messages that are only within a [certain] radius of their house,” Schafrik said.

These new communication alerts are a great tool to keep everyone safe, but the effectiveness of it depends on you.

“It only works if you sign up for it. I would encourage anybody and everybody to sign up for it, and encourage your friends and neighbors,” Schafrik said.

Greene County says that it plans to start sending out alerts by mid-February.

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