The Sullivan County Department of Emergency Services, which is already sending text messages of fire calls to firefighters with cell phones, will be expanding its notification to first responders and the general public – Mid Hudson News reports.

County ES Commissioner Richard Martinkovic said it is all part of the Alert New York system, which will go into effect next year.

“That will help us be able to contact individual areas of a community to give them information and also to alert cell phones that if you are traveling on the interstate, and there is an accident with a roadblock involved, that cell phones will go off and tell you get off at the next exit because that particular highway is closed five or 10 miles above,” he said.

(Source: MidHudsonNews.com)