Park County residents are being encouraged to sign up for a revamped notification system that will send out alerts for emergencies, road closures, inclement weather and other major events.

The county has offered emergency notifications for roughly 15 years, but it recently switched to a new vendor, Hyper-Reach, that will offer expanded service at a lower cost.

“Our job is to protect the residents of Park County as effectively and cost-efficiently as possible,” Park County Homeland Security Coordinator Jeff Martin said in a news release, adding that, “We’re excited about this new capability.”

Hyper-Reach’s system, which went live last month, can quickly notify residents of hazardous or urgent situations via phone calls, texts or emails. The system can send messages to phones across the county or just within a specific area. Hyper-Reach can also attach pictures or video to its texts and can automatically post the alerts to the county’s official Facebook pages.

In the course of an hour, Hyper-Reach can place up to 100,000 calls and send up to 100,000 texts, said Park County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Monte McClain. If needed, the system will attempt to contact a person up to seven times.

Another feature allows the county to issue Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) level notifications — like the Amber alerts that can prominently pop up on residents’ phones.

“Counties need a system like this and it’s necessary for us to conduct business in today’s day and age,” McClain said.

County officials say the system will primarily be used for environmental hazards like wildfires, severe weather, criminal activity and missing persons. However, McClain said the county also sees an opportunity for major events. For instance, during July’s Park County Fair, he said attendees will be able to sign up for alerts specifically related to the fair — such as an incoming thunderstorm or a missing child.

The sheriff’s office, Homeland Security office, Powell Police Department, Cody Police Department and Park County Public Works Department are all able to use the service when necessary.

McClain said the county plans to issue more notifications because Hyper-Reach’s offering is significantly cheaper than the previous service, CodeRED.

The county had been paying $18,000 a year for 30,000 minutes with CodeRED. Every attempt to contact a number counted as a minute, and with multiple attempts made, the minutes “were being used up very quickly,” McClain said.

For example, when a deadly wildlife ripped through Clark in November 2021, he said the CodeRED system consumed 4,900 minutes trying to contact 300 phones in the area.

“Imagine how many it would use for a county wide notification …,” he said.

The county signed on with CodeRED in 2008 and through last month, McClain guessed that the service was only used a handful of times, in part because “the consensus was to save the minutes for the ‘big one.’

“Thankfully that isn’t a concern any longer!” he said.

Hyper-Reach has no limits on usage, McClain said, with the county paying a flat fee of $7,200 a year.

“We reviewed all the major vendors for emergency notification service, and Hyper-Reach gave us the functionality we needed at a significant savings for our taxpayers compared to our previous vendor,” Coordinator Martin said in the news release from the county.

Hyper-Reach President Sam Asher said in the same release that the New York-based company was “honored” to have been selected by the county.

“It’s gratifying to be part of an effort to save lives and protect property and we take that responsibility very seriously,” Asher said.

Local landline numbers have been automatically enrolled for community alerts — including all the numbers published in the phone book — but residents must sign up to get weather alerts on their landlines or to get community or weather alerts on their cellphones, VoIP phones or via email.

Residents and citizens can enroll by calling or texting “Alert” to 307-213-7177 or by visiting hyper-reach.com/wyparksignup.html. 

Residents can also manage and monitor alerts via the Hyper-Reach Anywhere app or get emergency alerts on Alexa-enabled smart speakers by saying, “Alexa, enable Hyper-Reach.”

Residents who previously enrolled for CodeRED alerts don’t need to sign up again, McClain said, as all 11,000 contacts within that system were imported into Hyper-Reach’s database.