Registration for county’s new emergency alert system opens – Mississippi’s best local newspaper

NATCHEZ – Adams County is switching to another provider for emergency notifications to residents, such as approaching storms and other local life-threatening emergencies.

Robert Bradford, Adams County’s emergency management director, said to save taxpayer money, the county chose to contract with Hyper-Reach rather than use Code Red as a mass telephone notification system.

What this means for residents is that if they want to receive these emergency notifications, they must sign up for the alerts.

Bradford said numbers registered with Code Red will not automatically transfer to the new system. Residents will have to re-register their numbers with Hyper-Reach.

“Our mission is to protect the citizens of Natchez and Adams County as effectively and cost-effectively as possible,” Bradford said. “We evaluated all of the major emergency notification service providers and Hyper-Reach provided us with everything we needed at an incredible price. We are excited about this new capability.”

He said the new emergency alert system will provide rapid notification of dangerous and urgent situations using a mix of phone calls, text messages and email messages, including a TTY/TDD service for the hearing impaired.

The system sends thousands of these messages to geographically targeted households in seconds, while also being able to share them with an even larger audience via social media. In addition, by accessing FEMA’s Wireless Emergency Alert system, circulars can also be sent to most current cell phones – those manufactured since 2011 – in affected areas.

Bradford said the county plans to use the service primarily for weather reports, city or county events, environmental hazards, fire bans, community news and missing persons.

Landline phones are automatically registered for community alerts, but weather alerts for landline phones and community and weather alerts for voice-over-IP phones, cell phones and email addresses will only be included if people register, he said.

Residents and workers in Natchez and Adams counties are urged to register with a county address. This can be done by calling 601-308-8999, texting the word “Alert” or visiting hyper-reach.com/msadamssighup.html.

Residents can receive emergency alerts through their Alexa-enabled smart speakers by simply saying “Alexa, activate Hyper-Reach” and following the instructions provided by Alexa.

Residents can also download the Hyper-Reach Anywhere app to their smartphones. Bradford said the goal for Adams County is to register 85 percent of the county’s residents.

“We are excited about the new mass notification system and would love to see at least 85 percent of residents sign up within the next three months,” he said.

“CodeRed will remain available to us until July 31 to facilitate a smooth system transition. Next week we will have some staff and volunteers in stores and local businesses to help residents sign up for the new alert system.”