Emergency Notification System
The Capital Area Council of Governments oversees the region's emergency notification system, a crucial public-safety tool launched with funding from the Homeland Security Grant Program and participating local governments. Learn about the ENS, including how to participate using your cellphone.
ENS overview
The emergency notification system, an automated phone-dialing tool, helps authorized public safety personnel in the 10-county CAPCOG region alert residents, response groups, disaster recovery planners and other selected contacts during emergencies. As a computer-based system that uses phone numbers and addresses maintained by the 9-1-1 system, the ENS has been used successfully to warn people in a given area of threats posed by wildfires, floods, chemical releases and criminal activity. Residents are called only when property or human life is in jeopardy.
Landlines account for many of the phone numbers accessed during an ENS activation, but the volume of numbers from alternative devices is growing. CAPCOG has added more than 64,000 cellphones and 146,000 Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phones to the system, widening its coverage.
Cellphone registry
It's a cinch to get applicable ENS alerts by voice or text on your cellphone for emergencies near your home, business or other location in Bastrop, Blanco, Burnet, Caldwell, Fayette, Hays, Lee, Llano, Travis and Williamson counties. Simply follow the registration instructions and retain the personal identification number to update your account as needed. If a participating local government activates the system for a location registered to a particular cellphone number, the ENS will attempt to send the emergency message to that phone.
> Get the instructions, and register your cellphone
> Skip to the login section to update an already registered account
Resources for more information
> Read the frequently asked questions
> Contact Ed Schaefer, director of CAPCOG's Homeland Security Division
