With 12% of Story County households signed up to receive Story County Iowa Alerts in the case of a local emergency, Story County Emergency Management launched a competition across the county’s communities to see which community will see the most sign-ups.
The competition runs until Sept. 28 and is meant to inform as many people as possible about emergencies.
Story County Emergency Management Coordinator Melissa Spencer said people need to “be aware of the risks that are around them.”
Spencer said the alerts can be about weather emergencies, but can also vary greatly depending on the happenings of the county.
“It can be anything from a train derailment, it could be a vehicle that’s been leaking something, it can be anything that happened,” Spencer said.
A win in the competition means both a victory over other communities, but also a framable display.
According to Story County Emergency Management, about 5,000 of 38,000 Story County households signed up for the service prior to the promotion. With a population over 98,000 in Story County, Emergency Management Intern Samantha Scharper said just over 21,000 individuals are signed up for the alert service.
Scharper said the goal is to increase those who receive alerts by 3%, from 12% to 15% of households being signed up for the service. Seeing a 2% increase in individual sign-ups since the promotion started near the end of August, members of the department said they are hopeful they can reach their goal.
According to Spencer, these alerts are also important for Iowa State students, as they inform students about things that the current ISU Alerts do not inform about. With September being National Preparedness Month, Spencer wants people to be aware of and prepared for what is going on around them.
“Our system would help Iowa State students be aware of things that are going on elsewhere in the City of Ames,” Spencer said. “That’s why we do encourage them to sign up to be aware of things that could be happening off-campus.”
College students can add their parents or guardians to the sign-up, and they can receive emergency updates from out-of-state about what is taking place in Story County.
People looking to sign up can either do so by downloading the Smart911 app which allows people who sign up to select which communities they would like to receive updates from and what types of updates they want. Another way to sign up is through smart911.com. Lastly, people looking to sign up for alerts can text “StoryCountyIA” to 672-83.
Users can select what format they want to receive these notifications, such as by email or phone.
While the competition runs until Sept. 28, residents can continue to sign up after.
The system was put into use throughout Story County starting in 2021, and is only used in serious emergencies in order to make sure everyone is attentive when an alert goes off.
There will be a test of the system at 10 a.m. Sept. 29 to make sure everyone who signs up during the event can see what an alert looks like.
