The first phase of the Marion County Nixel-Everbridge program is now in operation. It will provide emergency weather information.
The chair of the Marion County Board Committee handling the implementation, Steve Whritenour, says those who were already signed up for Nixel through Salem Emergency Management Agency, the City of Centralia, or the Village of Sandoval will be moved over to the new county-wide program and will not have to do anything.
Whritenour says the sign up is simple and with the recent outbreak of severe weather he hopes residents will take advantage to having another way to learn of severe weather.
“Phase one you can text your zip code to 888777 and you will get a notification from Nixel-Everbridge and that will alert you of weather advisories, watches and warnings.”
Whritenour says they will start working immediately on Phase Two of the program which will allow for village and cities to have the ability to notify residents of local announcements. He is working to establish contacts in each city and village to be administrators for their portion of the county.
The Assistant Director of the Salem Emergency Management Agency, Andrew Strong, says phase two will offer a number of additional options.
“You can have 5 addresses under your profile that you would be alerted to and then you can also customize any special needs for your home. So if you have anyone in your home so if you have anyone that is power dependent to run medical equipment you can put that in there. If you are CPR certified you can put that in there. Why would we need to know that? If we have a natural disaster or event you have lost power we can run and check on those people who need power for their medical equipment.”
Strong says those with CPR certification could be called upon to help a neighbor in need in the event of a large disaster that overwhelms emergency responders.
The weather alerts will be available by either text message or e-mail. Right now, land phones cannot be signed up but will be able to do so in the future to receive phone calls about emergency situations.
