Houston County Emergency Management Agency implements new notification system

HOUSTON COUNTY — The Houston County Emergency Management Agency (HEMA) has launched a new mass notification system, “Houston Alerts,” to keep residents informed in the event of a county emergency. 

HEMA Director and Houston County Fire Chief Chris Stoner said Houston Alerts is replacing the older Code-Red system. The previous system deactivated July 22. 

“[The Code-Red] system is going away and we’re implementing a system through RAVE [Mobile Safety] and Smart 911 which is going to be known as Houston Alerts,” he said. 

The Code-Red system had been around for many years, and Stoner said they had never truly looked at what else was available until now. 

“Being fiscally responsible, we decided to go ahead and look at other options and alternatives to make sure that we were spending that taxpayer dollar appropriately,” he said. 

Six different companies went through the Request for Proposal process. Stoner said they reviewed each of those proposals thoroughly and ultimately decided to switch to RAVE Mobile Safety. 

With this new notification system, the most significant update is more sign-up options to choose from.

“When the public signs up to this new system, they’ll notice a lot of additional alert categories that we didn’t have previously with Code-Red,” he said. 

Users will automatically receive severe weather updates, such as tornado, severe thunderstorm, and flash flood warnings. Stoner pointed out these three are the highest critical alerts for the county. 

“They can also sign up for additional warnings such as heat warnings or freeze warnings and high wind warnings,” he said. “There is also a ‘watch’ category that people can sign up for if they want to receive weather watch updates for our area.” 

There are also alerts for utility outages in Houston County. Stoner said each municipality’s utility departments will have access to this system. 

“If there’s a planned outage or a water main break that affects a certain area, they’ll be able to send a notification out for those residents that sign up for that,” he said.  

Stoner urged every resident of Houston County to sign up for Houston Alerts. He said there will not be many notifications sent out; however, the notifications that do come out will be of the utmost importance. 

Stoner also pointed out notifications are based on location and said the sign-up process is relatively easy.

To register for Houston Alerts, go to www.houstoncountyga.gov and click on Houston Alerts Signup to begin the sign-up process.