Winchester Urges Residents to Become More AWARE

For the last few years and culminating last spring, Winchester residents and businesses have seen an increase in flood damage. In order to alert residents as to what was going on, the town used a Reverse 9-1-1 system. But a failure in the system failed to alert a number of residents to important notifications.

The town went without a different company – Everbridge – to create a new Community Notification System (CNS) that will help disseminate pertinent information across Winchester quickly and easily.

“The town was unhappy with our contract we had for the Reverse 9-1-1 and with the service it provided during the floods,” said Fire Chief John Nash. “This new system allows residents to customize the way they receive their notifications from the town.”

allows residents to receive text messages, emails or phone calls about emergency situations in the town. Residents can get information ranging from street closings to weather alerts to the closing of town offices to water quality issues.

“The speed at which Winchester Aware notifies the community is exceptionally fast,” Nash said. “The entire community is notified in less than 10 minutes.”

The service has been up for over three months and Nash is happy with the results. However, he would like to see more residents sign up for the free service, as the turnout has been low.

“So far we’ve been very pleased,” Nash said. “We’ve sent out messages from three different departments and they’ve all worked extremely well. And as more people register it can only improve its effectiveness.”

According to Nash, in order to register, residents need to go to the town’s website and click on the Winchester Aware button on the right side of the site. From there they can register and customize their profile.

Nash said that they could have the message sent to their fax, cell phone, home phone or email. And once the residents acknowledge receipt of the message the system will stop trying to contact them.

“Residents should sign up, it’s a really a benefit for them,” Nash said. “It will only help and enhance our ability to contact them and to alert them to important notifications.”