John’s Ramblings

In our personal effort to stay informed on upcoming calamities (of particular interest now are the potential flooding of the Green River Valley and the H1N1 flu pandemic), we have registered with the Regional Public Information Network in order to receive emergency updates wherever we are.  The basic premise is that you register an email address at their website, and you will receive notices of Emergency or Transportation alerts for the geograpic areas you specify.  It seemed to us that getting an advanced notice of a catastrophic failure of the Howard Hansen Dam would be preferred to just carrying a snorkel in our car at all times.

My preference is that I receive the notifications by text message to my cell phone, rather than via email.  This is primarily because my email to cell phone link isn’t always the most reliable.  The RPIN system has a cell-phone notification option but the online form does not allow phone numbers to be entered, just email addresses.  The work-around to this is as follows:

1. Point your web-browser thingee at the Regional Public Information Network website (yes, click that now).

2. Click the link to Subscribe to RPIN “Sign Up Today”. You will see the form to enter email addresses and Notification Type:

3. In the email address box you need to enter the email address that can be used to send text messages to your phone via email.  This varies by carrier, but here’s a quick list I just pulled off the internets.  If your carrier isn’t listed, call them and ask them for the email format:

Verizon: 10digitphonenumber@vtext.com
AT&T: 10digitphonenumber@txt.att.net
Sprint: 10digitphonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
T-Mobile: 10digitphonenumber@tmomail.net
Nextel: 10digitphonenumber@messaging.nextel.com
Cingular: 10digitphonenumber@cingularme.com
Virgin Mobile: 10digitphonenumber@vmobl.com
Alltel: 10digitphonenumber@message.alltel.com
CellularOne: 10digitphonenumber@mobile.celloneusa.com
Omnipoint: 10digitphonenumber@omnipointpcs.com
Qwest: 10digitphonenumber@qwestmp.com

So, if my cell number was 253-555-1212 and my carrier was Verizon, I would enter

2535551212@vtext.com

4. Select “Cell Phone” under notification type.

5. Enter more cell phones, if you want your spouse or 12 year old to know about the imminent disaster.

6. Enter the types of emergencies you want to be notified of, and the geographic areas you are interested in.

7. Click “Subscribe”.

8. You will need to agree to terms and conditions on the following page.  You’ll then receive an text message to confirm your registration.

Tags: disaster, flood, green river, howard hanson dam, rpin

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