City Director of Protective Services Lindsay Holm, bottom right, shown at council's online meeting discussing the Voyent Alert! smart notification service being rolled out. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW staff)

By Angela Brown

Communications app

City launching Voyent Alert! service for emergency notifications

Nov 10, 2021 | 5:01 PM

The City of North Battleford announced they will be launching a new emergency communication system using the Voyent Alert! smart notification service, so the city can communicate important information to residents during times of crisis.

City Director of Protective Services Lindsay Holm presented a report on the service at this week’s council meeting.

Residents are asked to visit the city’s website to see the full list of features available through the system. The public can register for the service for free through the city’s website.

The city’s protective services will prepare a test notification of the software in the upcoming weeks, so residents who signed up for the alerts will become more familiar with the system.

Holm said the city decided to change to Voyent Alert! for a number of reasons.

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He noted the Voyent Alert! system is in place in many other municipalities in Saskatchewan and is receiving positive feedback.

“I talked to a number of fire chiefs around that are utilizing it, and they found it was an excellent system, in terms of being very user-friendly,” he said.

Cost was also a factor. The city previously used a service through Everbridge, an American-based company, Holm said, so the cost for the old system was high since it was in U.S. funds.

Among the pluses with the Voyent Alert! system are that it offers more features, he said.

“It should service our community a lot better,” Holm said. “It should allow the city to communicate with citizens, not only on emergency basis but also with operations. I think it is going to be a great system.”

Holm said the city is planning on launching the new service shortly.

“I’m hoping the citizens of North Battleford will have a good uptake with it,” he said. “It should provide us with some real good value-added abilities to notify our citizens when we do have issues within the city.”

People will be able to sign up for as many or as few types of notifications as they wish. The system will be able to notify residents on various alerts, including boil water advisories or street closures. Emergency notifications will be especially important during times of floods, fires or significant weather events, for example.

Anyone can access the service as a downloadable application, or as an email or telephone notification service from within the city limits.

Mayor David Gillan is pleased to hear the service will soon be available here.

“We look forward to seeing it rolling out,” he said.

Gillan encouraged everyone to participate and sign up for the service, “because safety is very important.”

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow