In an Emergency, City Can Now Call You

Next time there's an emergency -- anything from a missing child to a boil alert -- the city can give you a ring to tell you about it.

Strongsville has installed a new emergency notification system that allows the police or other officials to send a recorded message to your phone.

"If we need to notify you of an emergency, we can call you," said John Bedford, the city's director of technology.

The calls can be directed to a neighborhood or the entire city, depending on the nature of the emergency.

The system can make 400 to 500 calls at a time, and in a major crisis, could alert 30,000 people within minutes, Bedford said.

Bedford is urging residents to visit the city's website, www.strongsville.org, to sign up for the notificiations. He said he was able to pull information from phone carriers to include most residents, but said some -- particularly those who are new to town or who have out-of-the-area cell phone numbers -- need to register.

To sign up, click the icon called "Notification Self-Registration" on the left side of the city's home page.

Then you can enter the phone number you'd like the city to use and other contact information.

As a bonus, you can also sign up to be notified when scheduled events change, like recreation programs, track pickup, snow plowing and leaf collection.

Bedford said the system, which was paid for with local money and a federal grant, has been operational for about four weeks.

Similar systems are used in other cities to notify people of hazardous spills, evacuations, threatening weather, missing children, Alzheimer's patients who have wandered away, road closings, water main breaks and to seek witnesses to traffic accidents.