Gwinnett County will provide citizens with a new wireless alert system to send text messages directly to cell phones in the event of an emergency. The system, similar to Amber Alerts and severe weather warnings, will be utilized for non-weather events like earthquakes, police, fire and hazardous material threats. Text message alerts will be sent with special sound and vibration patterns to distinguish them from regular messages.
One advantage of the new system is that alerts can be targeted to specific geographic areas to avoid sending warnings to parts of Gwinnett unaffected by the current threat. Like the National Weather Service system, cell phone owners will have the ability to disable the alert function. The county anticipates having the system up and running later this summer.
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