KANAWHA COUNTY, W.Va. –The Kanawha County Office of Emergency Management, Metro911, and the sheriff’s office have launched a new app to help residents stay prepared, alerted, and safe.
The new app, Kanawha Alert, was approved by the Kanawha County Commission during their Thursday meeting and is now available for download on Apple and Android devices. It replaces the previous app, KC Ready.
“Kanawha Alert is full of great resources to help our citizens on a daily basis, ” Commission President Ben Salango said in a news release. “We encourage everyone to download it, and take advantage of all the new features.”
The home page of the app features seasonal safety tips, emergency contacts, public notifications, a Plan and Prepare section, and several other tabs.
Another feature is a live feed of emergency alerts, which provides information on traffic accidents, lane closures, and weather warnings.
Office of Emergency Management Deputy Director David Armstrong said the app even includes a feature that allows residents to upload photos of damage caused by a natural disaster.
“Anytime there’s a disaster, flooding or anything we actually have a feature in this app that we can turn on a QR code and people can go in real-time and enter their damage and we can receive that information back,” he told commissioners. “But, that’s not going to stay on all the time, we will just go in and click that button on the back in when there’s a situation we need to do damage assessment.”
Another feature of the app is “Friend Walk,” which sends your location to a friend in real time to ensure you reach your destination safely.
Deputy Director for Metro911, Russell Emrick, said this is about education—especially regarding the text-to-911 feature, which is designed for situations where someone cannot make a voice call to 911.
“This is great public education, a lot of people that I talk to still don’t know the text to 911 is an option but it is an important option especially in cases where it’s either unsafe to call or you have low service,” Emrick said.
A few other features include a power outage map and an application called What3Words, a free app that assigns a unique three-word address to every location. Officials believe this could be especially helpful in rural areas, particularly for people who ride ATVs.
Emergency Management Specialist Jordan Goble said the app is easy to spot once you’re in the app store.
“If you’re looking in the app store or the play store, look for the county seal and the county outline is Kanawha Alert,” she said.
You can download the app here.
Photo: Kanawha County Facebook