On Tuesday, the Salvation Army will make an announcement about an important public safety tool ... one which is already in place, but will improve warning systems in case of bad weather or other emergencies.
Salvation Army officials will present a check to the Cleveland-Bradley County Emergency Management Agency Tuesday for an enhanced Nixle which will allow residents to receive phone calls stating emergency situations or stormy weather warnings.
“Data entry will be one of the challenges,” Curtis Cline, administrative officer with CBCEMA, said.
Nixle Pro will allow voice communications, SMS or Short Message Service cell applications, localized area alerts and group pages.
Cline said the antiquated system currently in use by Bradley County 911 is slow and outdated.
“Technology has greatly advanced since the system was placed years ago,” Cline said.
When group pages to police or sheriff’s personnel are sent, the system may reject a phone number, stopping all of the pages from being sent from 911.
The new digital Nixle Pro system will utilize applications which group pages can be sent without locking down the system and dispense much quicker.
Since tornadoes struck Bradley County and the southeast in April 2011 and again in March this year, CBCEMA officials have been working to attain better warning systems.
The Nixle Pro has a new interface with can access web pages, email, SMS, Voice, text options — all at once.
“We don’t have to go to different options. We will be able to post an event which will cover all these options through the interface,” said Cline.
“We will also have a better selection of areas where localized events are occurring. The whole county may not need emergency notification or information of what to do and when or any recovery efforts.”
Cline said the Internet Presidential Alert System (IPAS) is mandated for personal localized alerting. The federally mandated network system will send out “presidential alerts, alerts involving imminent threats to safety or life in the case of some sort of attack or natural disaster, Amber alerts.” According to Information Week Security, the presidential alerts will be mandatory.
Text messaging will go to every wireless message carrier providing the service.
“We hope the Nixle Pro bridges the gap with IPAS. At this time, IPAS doesn’t incorporate voice,” Cline said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is in charge of developing the IPAS program, according to reports.
“We are glad to be partnering with Salvation Army and add another personal and public safety tool for Bradley County residents,” Cline added.
Nixle is already in place with several thousand subscribers, according to Cline. There is no charge for the emergency message service.
Visit www.bradleyco.net and click on the EMA link to access Nixle notification sign-up.
