Bay Alerts Upgrading to new System and Vendor
The Bay Alerts notification system
provides 9-1-1 Central Dispatch with a fast and reliable system of
communicating with Bay County residents. The system can provide
emergency messaging via land line telephone, cell phone, text messaging,
pager and email. Bay Alerts is fully integrated with NOAA, which allows
for automatic weather alerts such as flooding, severe thunderstorms,
tornadoes and winter storms. Central Dispatch has also partnered with
several other agencies and departments in an effort to increase the
number of Bay Alerts subscribers. Over the past 12 months, 9-1-1 has
sent approximately 2.8 million messages with Bay Alerts.
As
a result of seeking continuous improvements and outgrowing the existing
system, Bay County 9-1-1 has made the decision to not renew their
contract with the current mass notification vendor. Following approval
from the Bay County Board of Commissioners on July 14th, Central
Dispatch will enter into an agreement with a new Bay Alerts vendor
called RAVE. The new vendor will be capable of putting out alerts more
reliably and with easier functionality for the system administrators.
Along with many additional benefits that will allow users to select the
types of alerts they want, the new systems will also integrate with the
federal Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS),
which is an internet-based capability Federal, State, territorial,
tribal, and local authorities can use to issue critical weather alerts
and warnings.
The Bay Alerts system will be offline for the next six to eight weeks, while
the new mass notification system is put in place. We appreciate your
patience and are certain that the new platform will better serve the
citizens and first responders of Bay County. The Central Dispatch Facebook page will remain fully operational and will continue to provide alert notifications in the meantime.