In the race to beat the clock when disaster strikes, Edmond's latest leap into emergency management comes in the form of AlertED, a new system designed to keep residents informed in real-time—without the clutter and noise that can often dilute urgent messages. According to Edmond's Director of Emergency Communications and Emergency Management, Benjamin Curry, "The worst and maybe most debilitating thing – at moments of potential crisis or emergency – is not knowing what is happening and what to do," as reported by the City of Edmond.
AlertED is taking over from the now-obsolete CodeRED system, bringing with it the promise of speedy notifications directly to people's inboxes and text messages, a pivot in public safety that recognizes the power and prevalence of the smartphone in everyday life; it's this device that now doubles as a beacon of safety, for storms brewing, children missing, shelters needed, and all manners of crises. Curry emphasized to the City of Edmond's official website, "This system allows us to send out information within a matter of seconds, so that we can inform our residents of what’s going on."
Targeting specific geographic areas is a key feature of this high-tech tool, enabling Emergency Management to effectively encircle a zone of concern, from which, residents nestled within that digital perimeter can receive updates pertinent to their immediate environment. "A lot of the alerts are geographic based," Curry stated, detailing the precise and localized nature of the system's reach, as stated by the City of Edmond.
Curry believes in the bigger picture too—the notion that a city strapped into the know is a resilient and inherently safer place to call home, boiled down to his conviction, "It’s really important for the city to offer this type of service because an informed city is a resilient city." To ensure uninterrupted access to such critical updates, residents previously registered with CodeRED must make the switch to AlertED, sealing their link to a life-saving stream of information, ready at the swipe of a finger, as per the City of Edmond.
