In Wake of Tornado Warnings, Residents Ask How to Register for New Rochelle Reverse 911 or “Connect CTY” Service

Written By: Robert Cox

F0D6B173-84AC-4625-9E40-F786303BAD3C.jpgAfter Tuesday night’s window-rattling storm which dumped 5 inches of hail in Yonkers, blasted New Rochelle with high winds and send bolts of lightening flashing across the midnight sky many residents were giving new thought to “Connect CTY”, the City of New Rochelle’s emergency notification system.

If your number is listed in the phone book chance are your number is already in the New Rochelle Connect CTY Reverse 911 system but that is going to leave out residents who rely on cell phones, VoIP services like Cablevision’s Optimum Voice service or otherwise have unlisted telephone numbers. Connect CTY also offers notifications via email and SMS text messaging.

The Reverse 911 in our community is referred to as “Connect CTY”. It is listed on the home page of the New Rochelle Online web site (bottom left, just scroll down). The City has been advertising the service since its inception 2 years ago but I suspect a lot of people are still not aware of it and even fewer are aware of the full potential of the services to send messages across multiple platforms (the City did say it is going to “reactivate” ads for the service on cable access).

As noted above, if a resident has a listed number they’re already in the system. All other info — cell phones, email addresses, SMS text numbers — need to be manually added.

To check if you are in the system or to register phone numbers at your residence or business or to an email address or SMS text number click the link below:

New Rochelle Connect CTY

Here is the official blurb:

New Rochelle’s Connect-CTY notification system allows residents and businesses to receive urgent and valuable information via a direct call and email. To register a private number, or to confirm that the Connect-CTY has your updated household contact information, please log onto the City’s website at www.newrochelleny.com and click the Connect-CTY icon. Five contacts can be used for each household: one landline phone, two cell phone numbers and two email addresses. All five contacts will be used in the event of an emergency. For important community messages that are not time-sensitive or of an emergency nature, only the primary contact number will be contacted.

I still don’t have a specific answer to Bruce Negrin’s question about whether Connect CTY can or should be used for non-emergency notices such as changes to the garbage collection schedule due to holiday. It would appear, however, that this might be considered an “important community message” that is not “time-sensitive or of an emergency nature” and thus calls might go out but only to the primary contact number for a given account.

3 thoughts on “In Wake of Tornado Warnings, Residents Ask How to Register for New Rochelle Reverse 911 or “Connect CTY” Service”

  1. It sure wont help if there’s a tornado poppin’ up
    That’s why tornado prone areas don’t bother with phone systems . They use sirens because you have to reach everybody immediately all at the same time, and you only have about 3 minutes to find shelter . And if your calling people to let them know a tornado warning is in effect you’ll clog 911 lines with all kinds of questions .

    1. I think you are missing the point…
      …the situation caused people to give some thought to emergency situations and Bruce Negrin has just recently raised questions about the Reverse 911 system.

      Whatever motivates people to take a few minutes and make sure they are registered with the City’s emergency system is a good thing even if the particular incident is not one where it would have been used. I would add that they also ought to register with the County system as well.

      Community Emergency Notification System (CENS)
      http://www.westchestergov.com/cens.htm

      BTW, the Tornado warning was for a period of 2-3 hours from about 10 PM to 1 AM so phone calls at 10 PM would still have been useful as there would have been plenty of people who were already in bed or otherwise not watching TV and so would have been asleep and unawares had a Tornado been imminent.

      1. GEEZ
        Good thing our city is WASTING money on saving people from all those category 3 tornadoes popping up all over New Rochelle!

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