Erie County launches NY-ALERT program
by TIMOTHY CHIPP Reporter

Erie County Executive Chris Collins and Gregory Skibitsky, Erie County commissioner of emergency services, announced the county's adoption of NY-ALERT, the state's all-hazards alert and notification system, at a press conference on Friday.

The program is a Web-based system that is used to provide emergency information to county residents who subscribe free of charge.

After registering online at www.nyalert.gov, participants will be able to receive text messages, phone calls or e-mails regarding emergency information.

NY-ALERT, which debuted in June 2007, has a statewide client base of more than 1.3 million accounts, Collins said.

According to Greg Brunelle, director of the state's Office of Emergency Management, the system has been activated more than 4,000 times since its inception, making it easy to get notifications out to the public quicker than ever before.

"The tool allows the responders on scene to very quickly update information," Brunelle said. "In the past, most of the systems available to emergency responders were disparate."

The system uses information from state and local governments to update subscribers on severe weather situations, major road closures, safety precautions and other emergencies that are ongoing and critical to county safety, Collins said.

And the system can be modified to individual specifications, Brunelle said.

"When you sign up for the system, you choose what jurisdiction you'd like to get information about," he said. "You can choose just the town or the village or the city in which you live, or you can choose multiple jurisdictions, or the entire state of New York."

Not only can it be customized to the geographic area, he said, but also to the types of emergencies being addressed, including flooding or winter weather advisories, routine traffic problem areas or general emergencies.

"This is a tool for local government use," he said. "This is not a tool for state use. Disasters and emergencies are local events, and we recognize fully that it is the local emergency responders that need to get on scene and get that information out to the public."

That data is distributed quickly after those initial responders relay the updates to the county's emergency management team, Skibitsky added.

"When there's a message that needs to be created and sent out, it's sent out in a relative quick period of time," he said.

But according to Skibitsky, the program can only work with more people registered.

"You need to get online, you need to register," he said. "We need to have as many people that can load their data into the computer network so when we need to push out this information, it readily gets disbursed."

Signing up for the system only takes a few minutes, Collins said. And if a resident doesn't have access to a computer, registration is available toll-free by calling 1-888-697-6972 to subscribe, he said.