Lytle Communication System to Protect Residents

LYTLE -- Nothing catastrophic has happened here in recent years, but local emergency management officials say that's no reason to be unprepared.

They'll spend the next few weeks readying an emergency messaging system to notify residents about any number of possible disasters, Lytle Police Chief Richey Priest said.

The idea is to make sure this town of 2,700 people, divided by railroad tracks and Interstate 35, can communicate news of a tornado, chemical spill, train derailment, flood or water main break, Priest said.

"We're trying to do what we can within small town resources," he said.

Automated phone calls will replace the city's time-tested sirens as the primary method of alerting residents to disaster. The city council agreed last May to pay $3,750 a year to Groupcast, a St. Louis, Mo., company, to run it, Priest said.

The Lytle Independent School District's use of a similar messaging system impressed Priest last year when he received word of a bomb threat at the elementary school from a teacher -- before anyone had even notified authorities.

"When activated properly, people know more about it than the emergency responders," he said.

The school district has been contracting with Groupcast for a couple of years to run its system, and even used it last week to alert residents to a parade to honor local country singer Gabe Garcia, whose status as a finalist on TV's "Nashville Star" show has made him a hometown celebrity.

The service can be triggered remotely, either by phone or through the Internet, by a designated emergency official, to automatically contact people in the city's database, Priest said. Residents will pick up their phones to hear a computer-generated or a recorded voice, and eventually text messages and email may be included in the service, he said.

The city's four sirens, which have successfully warned of nearby tornadoes over the years, will still be used in conjunction with the new system, said mayor pro-tem Jerry Stone, who is on the city's emergency management team.

"We're elected to take care of the people -- which includes being a first responder," Stone said.

Stone remembered how two miles separated Lytle from a tornado in 2007. The new system will reach a lot of people in a short time, including people who sometimes can't hear the sirens, he said.

The City of Lytle is currently collecting information from residents by placing information forms in utility bills, but a more advanced data collection system will eventually be part of the system, Priest said.