Sussex County launches Community Alert System

Computer-generated telephone calls will be made to registered phones Sussex County has added a new aspect to its emergency service capacity for the residents of and visitors to the county. Using grant funding from the State Homeland Security Grant program, the ‘Community Alerting System’ will enable authorized public officials to notify the public of imminent life/property threat emergencies by computer-generated telephone calls to all registered telephones in Sussex County. The county freeholders recently authorized a contract with Global Connect Inc. from Mays Landing to provide the service. Over 40 emergency services and communications personnel received training on use of the system in July at Sussex County Community College. Those authorized to send out an emergency notification will be provided with direct access to the system which includes a high level of security. Some 88,000 home and business telephones of the Verizon, Embarq (CenturyLink) and Warwick Valley Telephone systems are already in the database. Cellular phones can be added by going to the Web site at sussexcountysheriff.org and clicking on the “Community Alert System” link. The system will function unless telephone service is specifically disrupted. This will include times when there are power outages. However, most people have telephone answering systems that use a power supply to receive phone calls. Those phones will not receive the alerts when power is disrupted. Therefore, as per FEMA readiness guidelines, all homes and businesses should have at least one “hard wired” telephone capable of working in power outages. A “hard wired” telephone is one that plugs directly into the phone jack on the wall.