GERMANTOWN, Tenn. — It is important to have multiple ways to get information when disaster hits. The City of Germantown has taken this to heart, and the city is the latest place to launch a citywide alert system.
“Between the wind and the rain this is the most I’ve ever seen,” said Germantown native Stephen McFadden.
McFadden was just one of the dozens of Germantown residents whose home was flooded over the past week when heavy rain and thunderstorms hit the Oakleigh neighborhood.
“The garage got totally flooded so we had to rip out all the drywall and the insulation,” said McFadden.
Severe summer storms are not likely to go anywhere, which is partially why Germantown Inspector of Police Services Nick Godwin said the new alert system could not have come at a better time.
“Our threshold we use is the kind of thing you want to be woken up for,” said Godwin.
Along with social media posts, the new system will send out phone calls, text messages, and emails to Germantown residents who sign up. The system will give missing person and severe weather alerts, and it will even send out alerts for criminal activity in the instance that residents need to take immediate action.
“It started with the mobile shooter in the Memphis area, because everybody was on high alert that he was going around doing what he was doing. We had the attempted robbery in Saddlecreek, which we were able to get all of those guys in custody, but again we had a bunch of pre-schools and schools in that area that we really wanted to get that information in faster than what we were able to do that day.”
To sign up, all Germantown residents need to do is either test “ALERT” to 901-979-9955, or sign up using this link.
“With this it’s information you need to know right now, and then we can make sure you get it right now and it’s not the next time you log into social media that you can see it,” said Godwin.
In late 2022, Shelby County launched its own alert system. Chances are you are already signed up, but just to make sure go to ‘Settings’ in your phone, open ‘Notifications’ and then turn on your respective government or emergency alerts.