Living in the Shadow of Washington DC - Alert System

If you have lived in this area for any length of time, you will know that we have experienced some temporary emergency situations over the past few years.

We live in Montgomery County MD, in North Potomac/the west side of Gaithersburg, and have had 9/11, the "sniper" attack in 2002, a few bad storms, and various lesser impacts on our lives. All of this is intensified by living in a high profile area where our past president warned..when, not if, we will be attacked again.

Well, whether you subscribe to that fear or not, there are also other inconveniences and unforeseeable things that happen in life. And the City of Gaithersburg is taking a proactive approach to warning people through emails and automatic phone text messages of any unusual occurrences.

I signed up for this Alert System a few months ago, and it seems to be working great. So I wanted to share it with you.

So far in the past few months I have gotten alerts about a long Red Line Metro delay due to a suicide on the tracks in DC, a huge traffic problem in Rockville when a train collided with a car on Randolph Rd., an impending violent thunderstorm with hail and fierce winds, and most recently, a rabid bat was found on Watkins Mill Station Rd. in Gaithersburg. So don't freak out when you get a text from the Alert system. It's just there to help you out with current information.

You don't have to be a Gaithersburg resident to sign up for this service. It's easy and free..you just enter your email address and create a password, and then list your phone numbers, email addresses, blackberry, etc, information. To see more details and sign up for this service, click here.