Jackson 9-1-1 Encouraging Emergency Alert Signups

Jackson County 9-1-1 encouraging residents to sign up for the county’s emergency alert system with storm season arriving.

9-1-1 Director Michael Smith said he calls the “Hyper-Reach” system a reverse 9-1-1. He said anytime there is an emergency, residents who have signed up will receive an alert with the details of the potentially dangerous situation. Smith said the system can also be targeted to specific communities within the county in the event of water outages and road closures.

“If we have an escaped prisoner or if we’re looking for a missing person, we can target the area that this missing juvenile or whatever is in,” Smith said. “And that way, they can be on the lookout for the juvenile, or if anybody comes on their property, they can contact 9-1-1.”

Smith said the National Weather Service has added automatic notifications that can be sent individually, the moment someone’s home address falls within the reach of a severe weather event. He said each spring, the department reposts the web link on its Facebook page to allow people to sign up if they have not already.

“We have new people moving in,” Smith said. “And some people just wonder, they’ll be next to their neighbor and their neighbor gets one, and they say, ‘Well why didn’t I get it?’ So it just lets people know that it is out there and it is available.”

He said some 15 years ago, 9-1-1 directors in nearly every Upper Cumberland county came together and subscribed to the service to keep their respective communities safer. Smith said with each passing year, the system is tweaked and improved. He said now, people can connect their Alexa or Google Assistant to the service.

“Especially during when it’s getting time for the bad weather to hit, you know, we never know when there’s going to be a storm or a tornado,” Smith said. “But we try to reshare it on our Facebook pages throughout the county every year, a couple of times a year, just to get people to sign up.”