GREENSTONE — The Municipality of Greenstone has chosen an emergency-alert app for its residents.
The free Voyent Alert app “delivers critical alerts for emergencies like fires and floods,” according to Greenstone’s website.
It also sends out advisories on severe weather, road closures and other events, as well as critical information such as emergency shelter locations and preferred evacuation routes.
Mayor Jamie McPherson said Tuesday the municipality adopted the app “to ensure people get prompt notice of emergencies or issues or just general notices that they want tied to things the municipality is doing.”
The app sends out notices by text message and email and by posting on the municipality’s website, he said.
“We want to do our bit to ensure that we give information to people in a format that they’re accustomed to and comfortable with.
“It never hurts, because we are so spread out, to have different ways of getting communication out, there’s no doubt about it,” he added.
Voyent Alert can be downloaded and from the Apple or Google Play app stores.
“I’ve signed up for it and I think I got something the other day on it” McPherson said.
But so far, in the month or so Greenstone has been using the app, the municipality has had no emergencies requiring community notification via Voyent Alert – “which is good,” the mayor said.
The app’s adoption came from a “service delivery review” in which administration was directed to investigate the municipality’s notification system, he said.
“And so we directed staff to come up with an system and this is what they’ve come up with for us.”
