As spring storm season kicks in for Central Illinois, McLean County agencies have a new tool in place to notify residents of emergencies via their cell phones.
Weather alerts come with a geographic grid map detailing the area at risk for, or the presence of, storms. Emergency Management Agency [EMA] officials can send alerts to cell phones based on those little boxes.
"We have the ability to push out alerts to anybody in the area. Draw a box anywhere on the map and EMA can push out those alerts," Matt Berger, assistant information technology director, told the McLean County Board's Executive Committee.
The county emergency management agency, the sheriff's department, and other county departments have differing access to the system.
"We've had up for a couple of months now the ability to notify everybody instantly. And what we have been refining are the segmented groups," said county IT director Craig Nelson.
County leaders said it is more precise than the previous county access to a federal warning system called IPAWS or Integrated Public Alert & Warning System. They have tested the system, but Berger said they have not yet had to use it.
“There are backups to the systems, too. There is more work going forward as we customize the platform to allow us to do that more granular internal reporting that it can do,” he said.
The county had a project closeout conference last week with the firm setting up the system.
