Emergency Management

General

  • What is Alert Santa Fe?
    Alert Santa Fe is the official emergency alert and notification system for the City and County of Santa Fe, NM. This system sends alerts to the public and internally to city or county employees during emergencies. Alert Santa Fe is a free service that allows you to sign-up online to receive customized alerts via text message, email, voice message, and on social media (Facebook and Twitter). In addition to emergency alerts, you can also choose to opt-in to receive customizable community notifications. These include notifications about severe weather, safety, utility disruptions, major traffic incidents, and more. This service is provided by the City of Santa Fe at no cost to the public; however, message and data rates may apply. 
  • Why should I sign-up for Alert Santa Fe?
    When emergencies happen, be the first to know. Emergency officials utilize Alert Santa Fe to send official, real-time alerts to the public with information about potentially life-saving actions they may need to take to keep themselves and their families safe. By signing up for Alert Santa Fe, you are taking a large step toward improving your personal safety. 
  • How does it work?
    When an emergency occurs that meets the criteria for sending out an alert to the public, the Regional Emergency Communications Center (RECC), First Responders, or Emergency Management officials will gather the necessary information and push out an alert to the affected area. Alerts can be sent out to large geographical areas, to individuals who opted-in to the system, or to a specific area or neighborhood for more localized events. 
  • How much does it cost?
    This service is provided at no cost to the public; however, message and data rates may apply depending on your provider and phone services.
    During the sign-up process, you have the option to choose how you want to be notified and what types of alerts to receive. For any notification you choose to receive, you can specify whether you want text message, email, voice delivery – or any combination of these.
    To avoid being charged frequently pay-per-text or pay-per-call fees by your phone service provider, you can select only the types of messages you prefer – for example, selecting email only as the delivery type – or opt-in for ‘emergency alerts’ (which are infrequent in typical usage).
  • What if I live in the County but work in the City?
    Alert Santa Fe is the emergency notification system for both the City and County. When you register your account, ensure that you list all addresses for which you would like to receive alerts.
  • Why do I need Alert Santa Fe when I have a TV, social media, and a radio to keep me informed?
    Alert Santa Fe serves as another tool to keep the public informed during emergencies. By signing up for Alert Santa Fe, the public can receive real-time alerts directly on their preferred devices (text message, voice message, email, and social media). 
  • Why did you implement Alert Santa Fe?
    We are always looking for new ways to improve the safety of our residents. With Alert Santa Fe in place, emergency officials have the ability to send a mass notification with important information that could save lives.
    Alert Santa Fe helps fill another safety gap within the 911 dispatch center. During large-scale emergencies, the 911 center can be quickly overwhelmed by a high volume of 911 calls received from the public. A majority of the 911 calls received during emergencies are not about life-threatening situations, but rather contain requests for information about what is going on during a crisis or emergency. By sending alerts directly to the public on their preferred devices, we are able to keep the public informed and at the same time reduce the number of 911 calls from residents not in immediate need of emergency services. Easily available and authoritative public information will improve the 911 center’s ability to keep phone lines open to respond to critical emergencies. 
  • Can you guarantee that I will receive a notification if I register?
    While Alert Santa Fe is an excellent system, we cannot guarantee that you will receive notification in all cases. Disasters and emergencies are chaotic and unpredictable, and notification is dependent on external providers such as your wireless carrier or email delivery service outside our control. Alert Santa Fe will use several means of communication to try to ensure that should any one communications method, technology, or delivery option be unavailable to reach residents, other methods will be used to improve the likelihood that citizens will see the message.

Signing up

  • How do I Unsucbribe from Alert Santa Fe? 
    Click Here     to unsubscribe.
     
  • When I signed up for Alert Santa Fe it says I already have an account.
    Alert Santa Fe integrates with Smart911, a 9-1-1 service available throughout Santa Fe County (Rave Mobile Safety is the vendor for both products). This means that you can manage your information and preferences for both services through one account, accessible at either smart911.com or by clicking here. 
     
  • Who can sign-up for Alert Santa Fe?
    Alert Santa Fe is available to anyone who lives in, works in, travels through, or visits Santa Fe, NM, and is also available to all City of Santa Fe Public Utility customers. The address can be your home location, work location, or any other location you care about. For those who visit Santa Fe, but do not live or work in the City, pick the address of the location(s) you visit often. 
  • Is Alert Santa Fe the same as Smart911?
    While Alert Santa Fe integrates with the existing Smart911 service, they are two services that each serve a unique purpose. Smart911 provides a safety profile of your information directly to 9-1-1 when you call 9-1-1 in the event of an emergency. Alert Santa Fe will ensure you receive emergency alerts from the City of Santa Fe. Rave Mobile Safety is the vendor for both Alert Santa Fe and Smart911. 
  • I already have a Smart911 account, how do I sign up for Alert Santa Fe?
    Login to your account at smart911.com and click on the preferences panel on your dashboard. 
  • I don’t have a Smart911 account but want to sign up for both services, what do I do? 
    You can sign up for both Alert Santa Fe and Smart911 by clicking here. Be sure to add as much information as you want dispatchers to have in the event of an emergency to your profile.
  • Will I receive alerts if I don’t sign-up?
    Santa Fe residents who have a landline phone may receive alerts. However, there are strict rules governing when we can use this contact information to send out an alert. Only extremely critical alerts containing potentially life-saving information will be sent. City of Santa Fe Public Utility customer contact information has been loaded in the Alert Santa Fe system - utility customer information may only be used to alert customers in a utility-related emergency or service disruption. In order to ensure that you are able to get all emergency alerts we recommend that you sign-up for Alert Santa Fe. If you do not sign-up and register your contact information, you will not receive alerts on your preferred devices and may miss out on receiving important safety information. 
  • I live outside of the city limits, but I am a customer of the City of Santa Fe Public Utilities – can I sign-up for Alert Santa Fe?
    All utility customers can sign-up with their addresses for Alert Santa Fe. The City of Santa Fe Public Utility Department uses Alert Santa Fe to push out important information to their customers about disruptions or changes to utility services. 
  • I don’t own a computer – who can help me sign-up for Alert Santa Fe?
    You can visit your local Santa Fe Public Library to sign-up online for Alert Santa Fe. Those who do not have computer access are also welcome to attend one of the many scheduled opt-in events hosted by the Santa Fe Office of Emergency Management. Visit the City of Santa Fe’s Emergency Management’s website to see when they are scheduled.

 

Alerts

  • What types of alerts will I receive?
    Emergency alerts are sent 24/7 when there is an immediate threat to life and/or property. In addition to emergency alerts, you can also choose to receive customizable community notifications. Community notifications are primarily sent between the hours of 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. but may be outside if there is a priority alert. Community alerts may be sent to all recipients registered within the County and not necessarily to a specific geographic area. These include notifications about:

Emergency Notifications - Urgent, must-know information that may require action such as taking shelter. Alerts may include water advisories, road closures, power outages, evacuations, lockdown situations, etc.

Community Wildfire Information - Information regarding current wildfires, wildfire education, prescribed burns, and smoke impacts within the City of Santa Fe and Santa Fe County.

Severe Weather - Warnings issued by the National Weather Service.

 

  • What does an alert look like?
    Depending on your device preferences and the severity of the emergency, alerts may be sent via text message, email, and phone call, or to all of your devices at once. Text messages are limited to 160 characters in length; email and voice messages may be longer and contain additional information.
    • Text message alert example: "Emergency Msg: A 7.5 earthquake occurred at 10:55 a.m. on the Rio Grande fault line. Drop, cover, and hold on during aftershocks."
    • Voice message alert example: "This is an Alert Santa Fe message from the Santa Fe Regional Emergency Communications Center. A 7.5 magnitude earthquake occurred at 10:55 a.m. on the Rio Grande fault line. Drop, cover, and hold on during aftershocks. Only call 911 for life-threatening emergencies. Visit www.SantaFeNM.gov/emergency for additional safety information. Alerts with updates on the incident will be sent out periodically as information becomes available. Press the star key to repeat this message."
    • Email alert example: "Alert Santa Fe: A 7.5 magnitude earthquake occurred at 10:55 a.m. on the Rio Grande fault line. Drop, cover and hold on during aftershocks. Only call 911 for life-threatening emergencies. www.SantaFeNM.gov/emergency for additional safety information. Alerts with updates on the incident will be sent out periodically as information becomes available."
  • How will I identify incoming alerts?
    All text messages sent from Alert Santa Fe are sent using five or six-digit numbers called short codes. When you receive a text via a short code, you’ll receive a message from any of the following short code numbers: 226787, 67283, 78015, 81437, and 22911.
    We strongly encourage you to save these numbers in your phone’s address book. Simply create a contact called “Alert Santa Fe” and add the numbers above in the standard phone number field. This way, when you receive an alert message it will be more recognizable as an official communication from Alert Santa Fe. If your carrier or phone does not support short code messaging, messages you receive will appear to come from an Alert Santa Fe email address.
    Voice message alerts will be sent from the phone number 505-428-3710 and will display a caller ID of “Alert Santa Fe” on phones that support standard CallerID service.
    Email alerts will be sent from the email address: [email address goes here]. 
  • When will I start receiving alerts?
    Once you have signed up and confirmed your contact information within the system, you will begin receiving alerts immediately. 
  • How do I update or remove my notification preferences and contact information used by Alert Santa Fe?
    Follow the below steps to change your Alert Santa Fe preferences (for example, to reduce the number of messages of a certain type, or to change the contacts used for each kind of message):
    • Go to the Login page for Alert Santa Fe (https://www.smart911.com/smart911/ref/login.action?pa=AlertSantaFe)
    • Log in using your Alert Santa Fe username and password (If you’ve forgotten these, follow the instructions on the page under “Forgot Username or Password?”)
    • Once signed in, click the Preferences tab at the top
    • Under Notification Preferences, you can make changes to both the phone numbers and email addresses on which you want to receive Alert Santa Fe messages by clicking or unclicking the checkboxes
    • You can also choose what alerts you want to receive and the method you wish to receive them by (text, voice, email)
      • For example, if you wish to turn off all messages regarding Transportation Disruptions, simply uncheck the box to the left of “Transportation Disruption”
      • If you wish instead only to receive emails for Transportation Disruption notifications, instead uncheck the “Text” and/or “Voice” choices, so that only “Email” remains checked 
  • How often will I receive alerts?
    The frequency for which you receive alerts depends on the addresses you provide and the types of alerts you select to receive as well as the frequency of actual emergencies. Emergency alerts will only be sent when there is an immediate threat to life and/or property. Community notifications will be sent when the criteria for sending an alert are met.
    This system is not intended to bombard you with information. Alert Santa Fe will only send you alerts about the information you select to receive. To change your alert settings, click here to edit your preferences. 
  • Who sends out the alerts?
    The majority of alerts are sent out by the Santa Fe Regional Emergency Communications Center, City or County Office of Emergency Management, or City or County First Response agencies. Designated officials from various City or County departments also have the authority to issue an alert for specific types of incidents. 
  • Are alerts sent out in languages other than English?
    The content on the Alert Santa Fe opt-in webpage uses Google Translate and can be translated into over 80 languages. Alerts are automatically translated using an automated “best effort” into selected languages. Multilingual delivery is available for text and email alerts only. 
  • Will the Alert Santa Fe system call numbers outside of Santa Fe’s area codes?
    You will receive alerts on numbers outside of Santa Fe’s area codes as long as you have provided a valid phone number. 
  • How does the Alert Santa Fe system respond to busy signals or no-answer situations?
    If a call completes and is sent to your answering machine or voice mail system, a message is left. If a phone call is not answered or is busy, the system redials your number several times. 
  • If I am unable to make or receive calls or text messages during an emergency, will I still receive Alert Santa Fe alerts?
    Alert Santa Fe messages are more likely to be delivered to your devices than messages sent from local phone numbers during emergencies when telecommunication is down; however, receipt of Alert Santa Fe messages is not guaranteed. The vendor for Alert Santa Fe, Rave Mobile Safety, supports mass notifications via geographically redundant systems, including systems hosted outside of New Mexico, to improve reliability and redundancy while lessening reliance on local infrastructure that might be distressed during an event. Receipt of Alert Santa Fe messages may depend on your phone carrier and their cell phone tower operations, network connectivity, or other factors.
  • What if I receive a call at home and I am not there to answer it?
    Alert Santa Fe will leave a voice message on your recording machine with a local callback number. You may also include more than one phone number on your profile, such as your work or cell phone, to ensure message delivery.

Privacy and Contact Information

  • Will my information be disclosed or shared?
    No, your information is private and will not be used or distributed in any manner. The information that you provide is exempt from public disclosure and will be used for emergency purposes only. 
  • What precautions are taken to protect personal contact information stored in the Alert Santa Fe system?
    Personal information provided to Alert Santa Fe is private and only used to notify you for official Alert Santa Fe communications and to support emergency services.
    Your information is not used for marketing purposes and will not be sold to telemarketers or data-mining organizations. A variety of “opt-in” mechanisms are available to ensure you are getting just the messages you want to receive, delivered via the devices and communications modes that you choose.
    Alert Santa Fe utilizes the highest standards in physical and computer security technologies and conducts regular audits to ensure all information is kept secure. Privacy policies are also outlined in the Terms and Conditions you review when you sign up to receive Alert Santa Fe notifications. 
  • How do I update or remove my contact information in the Alert Santa Fe database?
    Click here to log in to edit your contact preferences. 
  • Who do I contact if I have more questions?
    You may contact the City of Santa Fe Office of Emergency Management at (505) 955-6537 or at oem@santafenm.gov with additional questions.