Louisiana Parish Launches New Emergency Alert System

St. Tammany Parish is launching a new emergency alert system that will allow residents to get telephone alerts sent to multiple phone numbers, including cellphones.

Parish spokesman Ronnie Simpson tells The Advocate the upgrade stems from Hurricane Isaac, when parish officials realized that more and more people are giving up their land lines in favor of mobile phones.

The new system, which cost $4,000 for the software, will ensure that people who have given up their land lines be notified if there’s an evacuation order or another emergency.

Simpson says people must register to receive notifications, something that wasn’t true of the old 911-based system.

St. Tammany Parish government is making a push to get people to sign up by going to the self-registration page at http://www.stpgov.org.