Reading Unveils Community Alert System at Friends and Family Day

Reading's town government unveiled its new Community Alert system this weekend at the .

The new, allows residents to designate additional means for the town to contact them during an emergency and adds the option for residents to receive updates about programs run by a variety of town departments.

For more information, read the release below. To sign up for the system, click here.

Full release follows:

Introducing Reading Community Alerts – a new way to stay informed about community news and events. Signing up for RCA should take less than five minutes – please see the Town’s website at www.readingma.gov and select the RCA link to learn how.

Follow the simple directions which will ask for what methods of communication you prefer – traditional ‘land line’ telephones, cell phone calls, cell phone text messages and email messages are some of the most popular choices.

This new system will allow quick communication with the entire Town in a matter of minutes when compared to over one day with our old system. If you have a land-line, this will be used in the event of an emergency – such as the MWRA water problem a year ago. If you join the RCA system online, however, you may change how we communicate with you. For instance, to first call a cell phone, then send an email, then the home phone.

You can also select up to eight non-emergency topics around town to follow, including Town News and Community Events, Bulletins from Public Health, Public Safety and Public Works, News from Elder Services, the Public Library and Recreation, and Reminders about Town bill payments.

To setup up an account, please be prepared to select an address inReading (or more than one if you wish to keep up with information about a child’s school area or other parts in town). For our non-resident guests, please feel free to select 16 Lowell Street (Town Hall) in order to sign up.

Updates will be published on the Town’s website and in local media outlets as this exciting new way to stay informed is introduced during the summer. Please feel free to direct any comments or suggestions to communityalerts@ci.reading.ma.us or call (781)-942-6726.