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Date: 6/30/2016
LONGMEADOW – The community has upgraded to a new emergency messaging system, which is compatible with the town’s website.
“This is really an enhanced system,” Fire Chief John Dearborn said. “It still will notify your home phone number. It works just like the old system. If you don’t want to do anything as far as registering your home phone number will still get the robocalls that the town manager or the fire chief puts out once in a while.”
He explained the new system allows residents to choose how they would like to receive messages – either by email, text messages, or phone calls.
Under the town’s previous messaging system, the type of messaging available for residents were limited and did not include text messages, he noted.
“You could opt out of getting [messages] on your home phone,” he noted.
"Also, any of the messaging we put out goes directly to the town Facebook or if you follow us on Twitter it’ll go out on that also,” he said.
Dearborn highlighted the importance of the emergency message systems during times of disaster.
“In preparation for an event such as if we know there’s a hurricane coming, we want to give you some tips,” he added.
“If we [experience] a disaster we can give you information like what roads are closed, if we have emergency shelters open, when you can expect different aspects of power to go back on … We don’t like to overuse the system because we want people to take it seriously. When they do see a message we want them to read it,” he continued.
Residents also have the ability to choose what type of messages they receive, which also includes weather alerts, community messages, meeting reminders, as well as trash and roadwork schedules.
Dearborn said messages could include information on road closures and water main breaks in Longmeadow.
“The nice thing about this system is if it’s only a handful of streets that are being impacted by say, a water main break, we can just put out the messaging to those streets and those people that are being impacted,” he explained.
He said registration is also available for individuals who aren’t residents of Longmeadow, including family members who have elderly parents living in town or for business owners who live outside the community.
For more information visit www.longmeadow.org/DocumentCenter/View/2146. To sign up for the messaging system go to ma-longmeadow.civicready.com.
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