On Aug. 28, Mayor Ralph V. Suozzi signed a contract with SWIFT 911 to establish a Reverse 911 system with the capability to contact and notify all Glen Cove residents in the event of an emergency and also to notify residents as appropriate for non-emergency activities or events throughout the city.

SWIFT 911 is a high-speed notification system that, in the event of an emergency, contacts every household and/or phone number either by telephone, email, text or pager. All residents and businesses will be able to identify their primary contact number and up to four alternate numbers.

As of Monday, Sept. 17, less than three weeks after the contract was signed, the City of Glen Cove's Reverse 911 was up and running. This means that in the event of a citywide emergency, the new Reverse 911 System can dial all listed telephone numbers to deliver a specific message to every residential and commercial property in Glen Cove.

Mayor Ralph V. Suozzi said, "This is only the beginning. The system has much more existing functionality and even more capabilities on the way, but as of now, the city can reach out to the over 7,900 listed telephone numbers throughout the city to provide important information to people in the event of any emergency."

Now that the city has implemented a citywide notification capability, it is working on identifying how to best utilize the many different features available to the city from the vantage point of first responders and emergency management as it relates to past emergency events and future needs.

An employee of SWIFT 911 conducted a four-hour training session at City Hall this past Monday. In attendance were city employees from the Police Department, Fire Department, Emergency Medical Service (EMS), Office of Emergency Management (OEM), Harbormaster, Public Works and the mayor's office. "Our job now is to take this training to develop internal processes and procedures so that we can be fully responsible for each and every notification event that we can envision, said Mayor Suozzi.

The mayor continued, "We will be conducting a citywide test of the system in the coming weeks so that residents can experience a call from the new system by receiving an actual call. The city will use traditional means to educate the residents and businesses prior to an actual test so that people do not mistakenly identify the test as an actual emergency."

The listed telephone numbers are refreshed every 30 days and residents will have the ability to add unlisted phone numbers and change their primary and alternate contact numbers anytime. The system can also send emails and text messages. The system continues to call a home until a person answers the call or it is picked up by an answering machine. Because this program uses a map of Glen Cove in a grid, calls can be made to specific neighborhoods with information affecting only that area.

"Before implementing SWIFT 911 we had to make individual calls and go door-to-door with fliers and use city personnel and volunteer resources. Our current method is labor-intensive, costly, difficult to mobilize and carries an unacceptable margin of error. With this new Reverse 911 capability the city can make 10,000 calls in 20-30 minutes," stated Mayor Suozzi.

The city will start an education and information campaign for the public, so there is no need to contact any city agency at this time. The city will reach out to its residents.