Washington County residents will need to sign up for the new Alert Iowa emergency notification system as the current system will cease services tomorrow.

The Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management is now contracting with RAVE Mobile Safety for the Alert Iowa system taking effect tomorrow, and Washington County Emergency Management Coordinator Marissa Reisen says the system will have better functionality and new features for users, “One of those is the ability to translate messages. So if you’re a Spanish speaker and you got Alert Iowa messages before it would always be in English. Now when you sign up you can put your language preference when you register and when we send out messages we can automatically translate it into Spanish or one of, I think there are 40 languages that are available that we can translate into.”

Reisen says Alert Iowa is a great tool that allows her agency to push official, real-time alerts via voice call, text message, email, and social media. Current Alert Iowa users will need to sign up for the new system to receive alerts, which you can do online or via text, or download the Smart911 app from the Apple or Google Play stores. For more information, visit here.