But Cambria County Emergency Management Agency coordinator Art Martynuska said sign-up totals as of Friday have surpassed officials' predictions.
"We haven't used it to alert anyone as of yet," Martynuska said, "but we've already had thousands of people register. In two days, we had over 8,000, almost 9,000 phone numbers.
"We were hoping for a good turnout. I think this exceeded our expectations. It's good that people have situational awareness and want even more of a situational awareness. This alerting system will allow to drill down to the public regarding emergencies and disasters and even messaging about COVID vaccines."
Residents can sign up for alerts by texting "CARES" to 99411, by visiting cambriacountypa.gov and clicking on the CodeRed icon, or by calling the County EMA office at 814-472-2050 between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.
While no CARES messages have been sent so far, responses and inquiries have been coming to the EMA at a steady pace. It's an encouraging sign for Martynuska.
"There's been a lot of positive feedback," he said. "There's been some very good questions from users.
"One of the questions that is commonly asked with a system like this is about data privacy. This is a secure system that is not shared with any outside entities. There's a very big disclaimer about the data privacy, and we're sensitive to that, and we want to make sure that people feel comfortable sharing their information with us and knowing they'll be safe."
Martynuska verified that the messaging service is free, but that data charges may apply to individuals depending on each user's cellphone provider.
"We want as many people, as many phone numbers as we can possibly get," Martynuska said. "The system is almost limitless in its capacity, so it's out there for us to use. I hope we don't have to use it, but it's there."
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