NEW MASS NOTIFICATION SYSTEM IMPLEMENTED BY CITY OF SHAWNEE

"I am pleased to announce the implementation of a new mass-notification system for the City of Shawnee, "Don Lynch Emergency Management Director announced today. "Our new Citizen Alerts program is now being implemented to make sure that our citizens know about public safety issues, City utility service interruptions and community events. Our citizens will be able to receive important messages via email, phone, text, and more, he added."

The success of this service relies on Shawnee citizens. "Having our citizens current contact information is the only way to ensure that we can contact them in an emergency, Lynch said." We are encouraging our citizens to please sign up on the City of Shawnee Website - http://www.shawneeOK.org/citizenalerts

It only takes about a minute to enroll! Even if citizens were registered under the City's previous mass notification system, they will need to re-register for this program since the City was not able to import any of the data from the previous system into this new system.

"With Spring storm season upon us, it is important that we get the information to as many of our citizens as we can and encourage them to sign up," Lynch commented.

For those without access to the Internet, Emergency Management will also be placing manual sign-up materials at several locations around our community in the coming two weeks.

The City of Shawnee will not share or distribute registrants' personal information, unless required to do so by law. Additionally, the City will never use information for any purpose other than to send emergency notifications or official information pertaining to the City.

Residents who sign up will automatically receive Tornado Warning messages at the same time as those messages are being sent by the National Weather Service to the news media and other informational outlets. Additionally, our citizens can opt-in to receive, watch and warning information about other hazardous weather including flooding, severe thunderstorms, winter storms, and fire warnings. For these messages, citizens can choose a period of quiet hours if they wish when those messages will not be sent. Tornado Warnings however, will always be sent as they occur.

The alert process begins when The City of Shawnee issues a message about a potential safety hazard or concern. Next, our Citizen Alerts program sends a message to the primary contact path. If citizens dont confirm receipt of the message, the system will try to reach their second contact path and continue trying to reach them until they confirm receipt.