Sign up now for free to receive civil defence text alerts in an emergency.
These free text alerts will let you know if there’s a significant emergency in the region. The texts will come from Bay of Plenty Civil Defence Emergency Management and will be sent only for serious threats to life and property, such as tsunami warnings, major earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides and severe weather events where time is of the essence in getting people to take action.
A very short, simple message will outline the threat and tell you to listen to the radio for more information. Once the threat is over, you’ll also get an all-clear message.
If you previously signed up to the Ready-net system (now not operating), you’ll be transferred over automatically. If you previously subscribed to Western Bay of Plenty District Council’s text alert system, you’ll need to sign up again to the new civil defence system. Encourage friends, neighbours and family to sign up as well.
The more people who participate, the better prepared we all will be in a serious emergency.
You won’t get inundated with texts; we’re using this system only for significant threats to life or property where time is critical. We’ll continue to use media, the website and social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter for other alerts, warnings and general information and public education.
We hope we’ll never have to use it, but we want as many people as possible to sign up for the service. Most people have a cell phone nowadays, and this is a simple way to be informed if something serious happens.