Sarnia users of the MyCNN notification system are urged to download the app

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The change in how emergency notifications are sent has been reported in recent years by major telephone companies following moves to add text surcharges to vendors who send text messages.

“That’s unfortunate, but that’s the way it sometimes goes,” Reelsmith said.

The MyCNN Community Awareness Emergency Response (CAER,) was launched in 2014 in the Sarnia area by a team of local businesses and government agencies, using technology in many North American communities to warn residents.

In an emergency, the system calls numbers from local phone directories, as well as sends notifications to those who register online.

The link to sign up for MyCNN is posted here caer.ca. Users choose how they want to receive notifications when setting up an account for the service, which is free to use.

“In Lampton County alone, we are ashamed of the 12,000 people who signed up,” Reelsmith said.

“However, we have 57,000 people because every year what we do is import all the white side data for all of Lampton County.”

One of the options provided by the system is to allow individual municipalities to send emergency notifications to residents for things such as roads closed for repairs or construction, flooding and more.

Reelsmith said the upcoming change to emergency notifications in the city is the “next improvement” of the notification system.

“Everbridge has come up with this good application, so now we want to get it started.”

Links to download the app can be found online www.sarnia.ca/my-community-notification-network.