By Barbara Pash
Katrina Hein, county notification systems coordinator, couldn’t be more pleased. In the first two days after NotifyMeHoward kicked off, 2,370 people had signed up. The free service delivers a variety of emergency and nonemergency information directly to your inbox or mobile service from county agencies and departments.
“The idea was for Howard County Executive Ken Ulman to communicate with the community and, also, to alert citizens to emergency happenings,” Hein says. The system, two years in the planning , launched in mid-November of 2011, with $300,000 in State and Federal grants.
Residents can choose from a variety of alerts and an e-newsletter to tailor the communication, says Hein: “You decide how you want to receive it and what you want to get.”
Among the offerings are: sports schedules from the recreation and parks department, the health department’s flu clinics, programs at the county library, and alerts from the Office of Consumer Affairs to name a few. Subscribers can also sign up for information on such spot news as the county’s response to weather-related emergencies like severe storms, tornadoes and flooding.
So far, the most popular option has been the weather warnings, followed by notices from the police department. Also popular is information about recreation and parks, says Hein.
Montgomery County and Washington, D.C., both have similar electronic notification systems that can be accessed via the Howard County system. “A lot of people in Howard County commute, so it makes sense to share information,” Hein points out.
To subscribe, go to www.notifymehoward.org and click on the “New Users” tab.
