Maximum Alerts, Multiple Mediums, Minimal Cost: Spartanburg County's Success Story

Spartanburg County, South Carolina's Office of Emergency Management represents a great example of a multi-faceted weather alert plan that gets life-saving alerts to all strata of their population at an affordable cost. Emergency Services Director Doug Bryson actively educates citizens on the importance of having multiple ways to get warnings, and taking protective action when warned. The county's alerting plan includes outdoor sirens, but leans more heavily on Facebook and Nextdoor social media, Everbridge phone alerts, and NOAA Weather Radio. An ongoing weather radio outreach has resulted in thousands of radios being distruibuted to vulnerable underserved populations. At the South Carolina School for the Deaf and the Blind, weather radios with strobes and pillow shakers give alerts to functionally challenged students and staff. As Partial County Alerting rolls out, weather radios will be able to deliver more tightly focused warnings, and TV broadcasters will be a big part of the education campaign to explain this next level of effective and affordable alerting. TV partnerships with Emergency Managers and your local NWS office are instrumental in encouraging and strengthening more Weather-Ready counties like Spartanburg.