A new emergency notification system will be launched March 1st by the Adair & Guthrie County Emergency Management Agencies. Emergency Management Coordinator Robert Kempf says the Adair & Guthrie County Emergency Notification System is part of the growing statewide notification system “Alert Iowa.” Currently, 90 of Iowa’s 99 counties have or are in the process of implementing this statewide emergency notification system.

Alert Iowa was developed by Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management to provide all counties with access to a single, statewide notification system that provides local control of how and when to disseminate emergency and public safety messages to residents.

Adair & Guthrie County EMA will be activating public access to the new system February 1st. The existing CodeRED alerting system will remain in place through March 1st as citizens register for the new system and then that program will be eliminated.

Kempf says, “Joining the Alert Iowa System gives us more flexibility in providing alerts to the public, continue to provide automated weather warnings, provide us with more options and significantly reduce emergency alerting costs for the agencies.” Residents will be able to choose the types of alerts they receive, for severe weather watches and warning. Alerts can be sent to residents via landline and cell phone, text messaging and email.

In addition, Emergency Management has been granted access to interface the new system with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) to send imminent emergency and public safety messages through the Emergency Alert System, NOAA Weather Radio and the Wireless Emergency Alerts system. Using IPAWS for local alerts will be another method to ensure the most urgent information is delivered to as many residents as possible when an emergency is happening and requires the public to take immediate action.

Residents can sign up for multiple phone numbers and email addresses to receive emergency alerts for their 911 address within the counties. You may also sign up for alerts that may impact your place of business by registering separately for that address as well.

To register for the Adair & Guthrie County Emergency Notification System (Alert Iowa) visit http://tinyurl.com/AG-alerts, the Emergency Management Page at www.adaircountyiowa.org or www.guthriecounty.org. You can click the signup button on the Adair & Guthrie County EMAs Facebook page.

Representatives will be in each community from 7:00 to 9:00 PM on different days during the month of February to assist people in signing up. The community schedule is below:

February 2nd Panora Fire Station February 11th Adair Fire Station
February 3rd Guthrie Center Fire Station February 15th Bridgewater Fire Station
February 4th Orient Fire Station February 16th Fontanelle Fire Station
February 5th Yale Fire Station February 17th Stuart Fire Station
February 8th Bagley Fire Station February 18th Greenfield Fire Station
February 9th Casey Fire Station February 19th Menlo Fire Station
February 10th Jamaica Fire Station February 22nd Bayard Fire Station