Sarasota Debuts 'Rapid Notify' System for Contacting Residents

  Sarasota has launched a new emergency notification system called "Rapid Notify" to contact residents and businesses during a citywide emergency.

The system uses landlines, cell phones, SMS text message and e-mails. Rapid Notify has geographic mapping capability to target alerts based on location and proximity to emergency situations.

Residents can sign up to receive emergency alert notifications at the online community self-registration portal. The sign up for Rapid Notify is free; however you may be charged by your cell phone provider for incoming calls and/or data.

The use of this technology enables the City of Sarasota to contact a large number of residents in a very short period of time.

It may be used during natural disasters, such as hurricanes, flooding, and other severe weather. It also may target neighborhoods when there are water service outages. 

Rapid Notify will use existing commercial directories to contact residents with landlines. But people who rely on cell phones will need to sign up.

“Rapid Notify provides us with the advanced communication tools we need to communicate quickly and easily with our citizens,” said Mitt Tidwell, City of Sarasota, Director of Utilities. 

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