MOUNT GILEAD — Telephone-based mass notifications systems are used by thousands of public safety agencies across the US to warn citizens about local emergencies, hazards and other threats. Now the Morrow County Commissioners, Morrow County Emergency Management and Morrow County 911 announce they have selected Hyper-Reach to help bring this same life-saving capability to the area.
Hyper-Reach is a state of the art mass emergency notification system designed specifically for public safety. Hyper-Reach will replace Code Red, the County’s current notification system. The county expects to have the service fully operational by the end of 2019. It will be jointly administered by Morrow County Emergency Management and Morrow County 911.
The new emergency alert system will provide rapid notification of hazardous and urgent situations using a mix of telephone calls, text and email messages, and even TTY/TDD service for the hearing impaired. The system sends thousands of these 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.
“Our job is to protect the citizens of Morrow County as effectively and cost-effectively as possible.” said John Harsch, Director of Emergency Management for Morrow County. “We reviewed all the major vendors for emergency notification service, and Hyper-Reach gave us everything we needed at an unbelievable price. We’re really excited about this new capability.”
The County plans to use the service primarily for alerts about weather and environmental hazards, criminal activity and missing persons. Landline phones are automatically enrolled for Community alerts, but Weather alerts to landline phones and Community and Weather alerts to mobile phones and email addresses are only included when people enroll.
Residents and people who work in Morrow County are encouraged to enroll now either by calling or texting “Alert” to 419-462-9320 or by going to the website http://hyper-reach.com/ohmorrowsignup.html.
Citizens can also download the Hyper-Reach Anywhere app on their smartphone. Hyper-Reach Anywhere is a free smartphone app 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.
“We’re honored to have been selected by Morrow County to provide its emergency alerts,” said Sam Asher, President of Hyper-Reach. “It’s gratifying to be part of an effort to save lives and protect property and we take that responsibility very seriously.”
Hyper-Reach (www.hyper-reach.com) is a mass notification system with over 15 years of experience in emergency messaging. Hyper-Reach sends messages via automated telephone calls, text messaging (SMS), email, and social media, such as Twitter. Other uses of Hyper-Reach include Amber alerts, toxic chemical warnings and armed shooter alerts.
