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New Smithers Emergency Notification System

The Town of Smithers has launched the Smithers Emergency Notification System as of this morning.

The goal of the program is to inform residents of Smithers about any emergency situation happening within the community.

From fires to floods, Smithers Mayor Taylor Bachrach says this will be another tool to get emergency messages out in a timely manner.

“The more effort we put towards preparedness, the better we will be able to respond if something major does happen within our community. We live in a technological society and getting our message out to the public quickly, is key to ensuring everyone’s safety.”

The notification system will cost the Town of Smithers $7,500 on an annual basis and will work under the guidance of Everbridge.

The system is set up so you can enter your address and phone number to be notified. By doing so, it will be able to correctly alert you in your time of need, depending on where you are. You are able to enter up to five numbers where you can be notified (work, home, personal, etc.).

Alerts include texts, emails, phone calls, or notifications via the Everbridge App. This system also allows users to communicate with the host to make sure they have received the notifications properly.

Most recently, a national emergency alert system was sent out that had mixed reactions and results. Smithers Fire Chief, Keith Stecko says he wants people to know this program will have better results, as it has been highly tested and researched.

“This system is already being used in 12 major cities across the US. We’re confident with the testing we’ve done thus far that it will work in our community. We’ve done mock scenarios to make sure the program was working properly and notifications were being received. If there are any hiccups along the way, we will sort that out internally.”

Mayor Bachrach finished by saying this service has something to offer everyone and would love to see 100 percent participation by the residents of Smithers.

“I signed up for the program today and it literally took me 3 minutes.” says Mayor Bachrach” To make sure this operation is successful, we need to have as many people on board as possible. When disaster strikes, people need information now. If you have not registered for this service, you won’t have the information as quickly as you may want. The town will continue to send out emergency notifications via news, social media, and our public website. This is just another way of spreading our message to as many people as possible.”

Registration for the Smithers Emergency Notification System can be found here.

Additional info: The Emergency Notification system set up will serve The Town of Smithers and surrounding area within 8 kilometers of Town boundaries.

Emergency notifications can be for such things as:

  • Water outages,
  • Floods,
  • Fires.

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