Emergency official urges residents to sign up for alerts
URBANA – If you are interested in warnings about tornadoes, floods, other severe weather, fires, hazardous materials spills and other emergencies in Champaign County, you can get them as e-mails, or as text messages on cell phones, through the Champaign County Emergency Management Agency.
Agency Director Bill Keller said 1,200 people have signed up for the county's MyStateUSA Alertsense emergency alert system since it was launched in June.
"It's a real easy way to receive severe weather messages," Keller said. "A lot of people don't have weather alert radios, and, unless you are watching television or listening to the radio, you might not get the warnings."
Those interested in the program can go online at http://www.champcoprepares.com/alert.php and provide an e-mail address and cell phone number, and select which warnings to receive from a checklist on the Web site.
Choices range from tornado alerts to nuclear and radiological emergencies, child abductions, air quality alerts, dust storms, fires, floods, fog, frost, high winds and thunderstorms.
"You can also sign up for alerts from the University of Illinois' alert system," Keller said.
There are options for hurricane and tsunami alerts.
"If we get one of those tsunamis, it's time for me to sign my retirement papers," Keller joked.
Keller said the National Weather Service will generate the weather-related alerts, with many of the other local alerts coming from the Emergency Management Agency office.
Keller said there is no charge from the agency for the service, but standard text messaging rates may apply.
"We encourage people who sign up for the system to talk with their families to have plans in place so everybody knows what to do when you get one of these emergency warnings," Keller said. "If this system saves even one life, it will be worth it."
For more information on the program, call the Champaign County Emergency Management Agency at 384-3826 or go online at www.champaigncountyema.org.
The UI and the city of Danville operate similar alert systems.
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