Excerpt from the Lafayette PD Newsletter, April 2019
The Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office of Emergency Services maintains our Community Warning System (CWS). CWS is generally used only for life-threatening incidents. The CWS can call every AT&T landline in the County in just a few seconds. It can also call VoIP phones (Voice over Internet, such as Comcast, Vonage, Magic Jack, or others that rely on the internet) and cell phones, but ONLY if they are registered with the system. If you have a cell or VoIP phone, you must register with the Community Warning System for them to be able to alert you. Your information will be kept confidential and will not be used for any other purposes. To register Cell phones, VoIP phones or to subscribe to text messages and emails go to http://cococws.com/.
The Community Warning System can also send messages via NOAA Weather Radios. The radio needs to be equipped with “Specific Area Message Encoding” (S.A.M.E.) technology. Once the radio is set for our County, it will sound an alarm when activated by CWS. The alarm is quite loud so put the radio in a location where it will wake you if the emergency occurs during sleeping hours. A popular example of this type of radio is the Midland WR120 NOAA Weather Alert Radio.
NIXLE Alerts – Residents who have not yet subscribed are urged to subscribe to the alerting system that we perform through the Nixle Alert System. For significant incidents and disasters within the community, this is the primary system that will be used to provide our residents with information about events. You can subscribe to Nixle Alerts by visiting the Nixle Website (www.nixle.com) – Again, this is a free service for our residents. You will receive a text alert when notifications are sent out by the Lafayette Police or City Officials.
