In an emergency this system gives important life safety information through phone calls, texts and emails. The calls will begin Tuesday midmorning and will continue until the entire database has been attempted. This call will give Fluvanna personnel the chance to operate the system as if there had been a community-wide disaster. This system automatically picks up landlines but other contact numbers (phone numbers or email addresses) must be manually entered into the database, according to the release.
The test call message directs recipients to the Fluvanna County website to add additional contact numbers, and it also asks that recipients spread the word by mentioning the system to family, friends and neighbors.
Cheryl Elliott Wilkins, the county’s emergency services director, suggests that “all individuals and businesses should take the time to visit our website and add contact information to include cellular phones and other non-traditional phones as well as email and text addresses. If your contact information is not in the database, you will not receive a call when an urgent message is sent.”
In particular, businesses should register, as well as individuals who have unlisted phone numbers, who have changed their phone number recently, and those who use a cellular phone exclusively or have VoIP phones (such as Vonage) as their primary numbers, Wilkins said.
For more information visit www.fluvannacounty.org and follow the CodeRED link on the right side of the page. Those without Internet access may call the county for assistance at 434-591-1910 Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
