With funding from a federal Homeland Security grant, the county Emergency Management Agency contracted with New Jersey-based SwiftReach Systems to provide a county mass notification system, interim county Manager C. David Pedri announced on Wednesday.
“This is something that the EMA has been working on for some time,” Pedri said. “They are not only preparing for any sort of disaster or emergency that could happen, they are being progressive and they are working to take the county to the next level. This is the first step of that.”
Pedri introduced EMA Director Lucille Morgan, Deputy Director Garrett Hittle and Chaz Garrity, with SwiftReach Client Development, at a presentation and demonstration for the media Wednesday at the EMA building on Water Street in Wilkes-Barre.
“The system gives public safety officials a really simple yet powerful tool to communicate with residents and staff members — anything from a desktop interface to mobile apps. It makes it really simple for them to communicate,” Garrity said.
“So, whether it’s from a web portal such as the county website or our Swift911 Public app, now residents can provide contact information, subscribe to different lists, different municipalities — you might have people who live and work in different towns within the county — they can subscribe to alerts from everybody and they can do so all from the mobile app,” Garrity said.
The system also will interface with the county EMA Facebook page at www.facebook.com/LuzerneCountyEMA.
In addition to general emergency alerts, the county also will have subscriptions available for notifications about the Susquehanna nuclear power plant near Berwick, weather alerts and Susquehanna River alerts.
Morgan said that a $50,000 grant to pay for the service was approved by the East Central Task Force — a collaborative force of seven counties (Berks, Columbia, Luzerne, Montour, Northumberland, Schuylkill and Wyoming); several state agencies; Emergency Medical Services councils; and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The $50,000 will pay for one year of service and support for the county and participating municipalities. If the task force opts not to approve another grant for the following year, it would be up to county council to decide whether or not to fund continuing the alert system, Morgan said.
Hittle said that while the service is managed through the Luzerne County EMA, the agency is making the service available to all municipalities within the county at no cost to them. “Later today, we’ll be sending out information to them, so they can opt in or opt out of the program. Some municipalities already have an emergency notification system,” he said.
For example, if there was a major natural gas leak in a neighborhood, municipal officials there could send an emergency alert to residents in the neighborhood with instructions if the municipality had opted into the alert system.
“Some of the other counties in the task force are (only) using (the notification system) internally. But we thought it was important, as long as we were going to get this service, to offer it to our municipalities … so we were more prepared for emergencies,” Morgan said.
Of course to receive notifications, residents must register online and subscribe to alerts for one or more municipalities. Those who register can opt to receive text messages, emails and/or phone call messages. The blue Swift911 Public app can be downloaded at Google Play or the Apple App Store. (The red Swift911 Mobile app is for officials who send alerts.)
Pedri said municipal officials will be invited to a presentation and demonstration of the system on Jan. 21.
“This is intergovernmental cooperation,” Pedri said. “This is exactly what Luzerne County should be doing. We’re working with other municipalities and we’re giving better services to our citizens.”
———
©2016 The Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.)
Visit The Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.) at www.timesleader.com
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
