The city of Saskatoon will continue to use a mass emergency notification system, as Prince Albert announced it was discontinuing its PA-Alert system this week.
While Prince Albert residents are being encouraged to use the provincial SaskAlert app after Friday, Pamela Goulden-McLeod, Director of Saskatoon’s Emergency Management Organization says NotifyNow is very specific to Saskatoon. She says people can geo-pinpoint their own neighbourhood, and the Saskatoon Police Service have even used it to provide information during incidents, needed to stay safe or alert residents to shelter in place.
Goulden-McLeod says people can even pinpoint specific locations to receive notifications for schools, work and home addresses.
In 2020, Goulden-McLeod states 12 emergency mass notifications were sent out, that included things like the November snow storm, a water issue in December, notifications from the Saskatoon Police and COVID-19 updates.
Goulden-McLeod says the NotifyNow app utilizes the white pages and over 90,000 people have signed up on the City’s website.
The Prince Albert Fire Department announced this week the PA-Alert would discontinue on Friday. Fire Chief Kris Olsen says in order to provide the public with a single common platform to receive emergency notifications they are recommending using the provincial notification system.
The provincial notification system can be found here:
You can sign up for Saskatoon’s Notify Now here: