Jim Wells County launches Be Alert mass notification system

Jim Wells County residents can sign up now for Be Alert, the new countywide notification system shared with the City of Alice and the City of Orange Grove. The service is designed to send voice, text and email warnings for severe weather, boil-water notices, road closures, evacuation concerns and sheriff alerts, and it lets users add more than one location, including home, work and school.

The launch gives Jim Wells County a single public-warning platform after years of relying on earlier alert tools. In 2024, about 3,800 people were registered for the county’s Hyper-Reach system, which was used for hurricanes, burn bans and freezes and could target alerts to specific geographic areas. County officials said the move toward Everbridge was driven by lower cost and broader interoperability with neighboring jurisdictions and the National Weather Service.

That matters in a county where one part of the map can be under threat while another is untouched. County Judge Pedro “Pete” Trevino Jr. has said it can be difficult to reach people during emergencies, and that problem is exactly what Be Alert is meant to address. A resident in Alice can cover a child’s school address, a worker can add a jobsite, and a family in Orange Grove can track more than one place without having to chase notices across different channels.

The county is also still pushing residents toward the State of Texas Emergency Assistance Registry, or STEAR, for evacuation assistance. That is a separate step from Be Alert, and it is especially important for people who may need extra help getting out during a storm, wildfire or other emergency. The county’s own warning system is built for location-aware alerts, but households that do not register, or that leave old contact information in place, can still miss critical notices when conditions change fast.

Everbridge’s public-warning platform is already in use elsewhere in Texas. The City of Melissa began using it as its official emergency notification system on Feb. 1, 2026, allowing residents to manage preferences and choose weather notifications during registration. For Jim Wells County, the new system is meant to do the same basic job with more precision: get the right warning to the right place before the next severe weather event or evacuation order turns routine travel into a safety problem.