City Hall Wants Your Cell Phone Number So It Can Warn You About Emergencies. Riiiiight.

City Hall Wants Your Cell Phone Number So It Can Warn You About Emergencies. Riiiiight.

By Robert Wilonsky Tue., Jan. 31 2012 at 12:14 PM

A few years back Dallas City Hall made a big push for folks to sign up for its Reverse 911 Emergency Notification System, which called you when danger was near. Or, at least, that was the idea. But this morning the city sent a heads-up: Reverse 911 is dead, long live GeoCast®Web, which is supposed to do the same thing except through your cell phone, which wasn't possible through Reverse 911. Says the city, the new system is ...

..."an emergency warning tool that will be used to provide rapid phone notifications to people in situations when public safety may be at risk. It will only be used during emergencies, such as chemical spills or hazardous materials incidents, fire or flooding evacuation scenarios, and drinking water contamination."

I just went to sign up, for the hell of it. At which point I saw this amongst the disclaimers:

Because of circumstances unforeseen and the dynamic nature of some large-scale emergencies, the City of Dallas cannot guarantee that you will receive a notification every time.

I think I'll stick with my previous emergency notification system: a call from my mom.

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EastDallasResident

Just tried it and apparently it doesn't work in Firefox, only in Internet Explorer. Score one for the jokers at Microsoft.

LaceyB

If we relied on City Hall to relay to us that sort of information, we'd all end up looking like "The Oblongs". http://www.angusoblong.net/the...

Intellectualdiot

I love that show.

Sooo..... if there's a chemical spill on the tollway, even though I live and work downtown, but I happen to me driving to Addison to meet a friend.... will they notify me?

NewsDog

The tollway between the levees could never have a chemical spill or an accident because it will be guarded over by faries who have special mystical powers.

Ed D.

That's just a boiler-plate disclaimer that covers Dallas if the cell towers go down which is outside of their control. Tarrant County has offered a nifty, easily customized text message alert system from Nixle ( http://www.nixle.com/ ) that I've used for the weather alerts. Glad to see Dallas headed in the same direction.