St. Mary’s County has upgraded its early weather alerting system to allow residents to receive winter storm warnings. The county provides weather warnings through a service called CodeRED Weather Warning, a service of Emergency Communications Network (ECN).
According to The National Weather Service (NWS), winter storms can immobilize a region and paralyze a city, stranding commuters, stopping the flow of supplies and disrupting emergency and medical services. “Residents need to be informed and better prepare for these devastating storms. With new winter storm warnings available, our community can do just that,” said Bob Kelly Director of Emergency Services & Technology.
Winter storm warnings are sent to residents through text and email messages moments after an alert is issued by the NWS. Notifications are only available to those who have opted in to the county’s CodeRED system. To receive an alert for a winter storm warning, residents should log on to the county’s website at www.stmarysmd.com and enter both an email address and a cell phone number. Residents may also opt-in to receive severe thunderstorm, flash flood, tornado, and tsunami warnings through telephone calls and e-mail messages to their homes and businesses or by text messages to their cell phones.
The county encourages all residents to subscribe to the CodeRED system. “Now having the option to receive winter storm warnings is an added bonus for the residents that live here and will provide them extra time to prepare if a storm were to impact our area,” Kelly said. “This month is National Preparedness Month and this additional service will provide another opportunity for improved situational awareness. More information on CodeRed and other resources are available on the county website at prepare.stmarysmd.com.”
The CodeRED system upgrade comes at no additional cost to the county’s current contract with ECN.
