NY-ALERT IS A ONE-STOP-SHOP FOR ALL THE PUBLIC ALERTING NEEDS OF NYS MUNICIPALITIES & PUBLIC SAFETY AGENCIES.
New York State developed NY-ALERT to serve as the authoritative gateway for sending and receiving warnings and alerts to the citizens of New York State during times of emergency.
NY-ALERT provides a secure platform for the dissemination of emergency information during a crisis. Once an agency or emergency manager obtains an account on NY-ALERT, they can author, save, and send messages to citizens within their geographic area of authority or to the private notification groups under their control. A single message can be sent out via numerous messaging gateways simultaneously – providing the most comprehensive notification system available.
In addition to allowing citizens to sign up to receive specific alerts, NY-ALERT also can be used by municipalities to disseminate emergency messages via reverse 911 phone calls to households within a specified jurisdiction. Note that individual counties must request and authorize reverse 911 calling on behalf of local municipalities. The NY-ALERT mapping tools can be used by notifiers to target reverse 911 messages to a specific geographic area (municipal area, point and radius or polygon).
Private notification groups can also be established inside of NY-ALERT to allow organizations to notify select collections of users. For example, universities can set up private notification groups to alert either faculty or staff during an emergency. Municipalities or public safety agencies can set up private notification groups to notify staff in the event their response to a disaster is needed. And schools can set up notification groups to advise parents should an issue at school occur.
NY-ALERT’s messaging and notification capabilities go far beyond simple one-way notification. When messages are created in NY-ALERT, notifiers can opt to have recipients of phone calls provide a response to a message by simply pressing buttons on their telephone keypad. For example, a message notifying emergency management team members of a hazardous materials spill can ask whether or not team members are responding to the Emergency Operations Center. Message recipients can be instructed to “press 1 if they are responding” or to “press 2 if they are not responding.” These responses are then recorded within NY-ALERT and a report is generated showing the notifier the responses that were received.
NY-ALERT provides a wide variety of information alert types to users – and the list of available information is constantly growing. Some of the available alert types include weather alerts, marine warnings, earthquake notifications, consumer product safety information, transportation interruptions, Amber Alerts, sex offender notifications, orders of protection, public health alerts, and many others. Users of NY-ALERT can pick-and-choose which alert types they would like to receive and identify geographic areas of interest.
If you would like more information on obtaining an account to use NY-ALERT for your municipality or public safety agency, please send an email to support@nyalert.gov with the subject: Questions on using NY-Alert.
Click the this link to sign up: https://www.nyalert.gov/