Frequently Asked Questions

Emergency alerts are sent 24/7 when there is an immediate threat to life and/or property. In addition to emergency alerts, you can also choose to receive customizable community notifications. These include notifications about:

• Severe
• Safety risks
• Health risks
• Transportation disruption
• Special event information
• Test messages

You are not able to reply to texts or emails sent by Alerts powered by Smart911. Voice messages provide a dial-back number to replay an alert message.

Once you have signed up online and confirmed your contact information within the system, you will begin receiving alerts.

Follow the below steps to change your Alerts powered by Smart911 preferences (for example, to reduce the number of messages of a certain type, or to change the contacts used for each kind of message):

• Go to the login page for Alerts powered by Smart911
• Login using your Alerts powered by Smart911 username and password (If you've forgotten these, follow the instructions on the page under "Forgot Username or Password?")
• Once signed in, click the 'Preferences' tab at the top
• Under 'Notification Preferences', you can make changes to both the phone numbers and email addresses on which you want to receive Alerts powered by Smart911 messages by clicking or unclicking the checkboxes
• You can also choose what alerts you want to receive and the method you wish to receive them by (text, voice, email)
• For example, if you wish to turn off all messages regarding Transportation Disruptions, simply uncheck the box to the left of "Transportation Disruption"
• If you wish instead only to receive emails for Transportation Disruption notifications, instead uncheck the "Text" and / or "Voice" choices, so that only "Email" remains checked

The frequency for which you receive alerts depends on the addresses you provide and the types of alerts you select to receive as well as the frequency of actual emergencies. Emergency alerts will only be sent when there is an immediate threat to life and/or property. Community notifications will be sent when the criteria for sending an alert are met.

This system is not intended to bombard you with information. The City will only send you alerts about the information you select to receive. To change your alert settings, log in and edit your preferences.

If a call completes and is sent to your answering machine or voice mail system, a message is left. If a phone call is not answered or busy, the system redials your number several times.