Birmingham City Council has set up Birmingham Community Alert to send out messages, based on postcode area, by email, SMS, automated voice calls and fax.
It is run by the Birmingham Resilience Team and covers incidents such as flooding, power failures, major road closures, health risks and evacuation.
Residents sign up for the free service and select their preferred methods of contact. To register for text alerts, they can simply send an SMS to 83118 with the word ALERT followed by a Birmingham postcode. Two further locations can be added such as a work address and a relative or friend.
It is based on HTK's Horizon platform, which includes mapping and multi-channel communications capabilities.
"Rapid delivery of information to as many people as possible is critical in emergencies to protect and reassure the public and manage the incident," said councillor Paul Tilsley, deputy leader of Birmingham City Council.
Staff
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