NCSO News

Fireworks are an American tradition and as the Fourth of July holiday approaches, the Nolan County Sheriff’s Office would like for everyone to have a safe and enjoyable Fourth of July holiday. Beautiful and exciting to watch, fireworks are nevertheless explosive devices that can cause serious injuries and property damage. If using fireworks, please do not consume alcohol and have an accessible fire extinguisher, water supply or bucket of water nearby for emergencies.

As a reminder, pursuant to City of Sweetwater Texas ordinance, the use or discharge of fireworks, including safe and sane fireworks, are prohibited, except for designated areas where considered private property outside Sweetwater city limits within the county. If using fireworks in a designated area, please remember to read and follow all instructions and avoid lighting fireworks near flammable items or in areas where there is dry grass or brush that could catch fire.

In addition to extra patrols focused on intoxicated driving over the holiday, deputies will be prepared to enforce laws related to illegal fireworks, issue citations, and confiscate fireworks being used outside designated areas.

Using or possessing illegal fireworks is a Class C Misdemeanor.

Each year deputies respond to complaints of Fourth of July gatherings that get out of hand due to intoxication and illegal fireworks. These complaints include physical injury, property damage or neighborhood disturbances. If you are impaired in any way when you use fireworks, you increase the possibilities of misuse and injury to yourself and others. Citizens should consider that damage or injury caused by a careless act involving fireworks can bring significant civil liability.

If camping with family and friends, please remember to use extreme caution with your campfires and grills. Only light fires and grills in designated areas, never leave a fire or grill burning unattended, and always have plenty of water available. As you enjoy your Fourth of July celebrations, please remember to have a designated driver if you’ve been consuming alcohol – do not drink and drive.

Effective Monday, May 6, 2013, work is scheduled to begin on the Nolan County Courthouse facade remediation. The north parking lot and east parking lot will be closed to the general public, and as the work progresses, the parking lot closings will move to the south and west sides of the building as necessary.

However, part of the northeast end of the courthouse parking lot will be available for handicap access and entrance only.

Reference photograph for accessibility during phases 1 and 2.

Nolan County/City of Sweetwater has a new emergency and mass notification provider. The transition from DeltAlert to the industry-leading, high-speed mass notification system, CodeRED®, began earlier this year.

The transition to CodeRED will offer Nolan County/City of Sweetwater citizens the access to patented technologies that were not available with the previous provider. Public safety officials at Nolan County/City of Sweetwater will be able to more effectively communicate time-sensitive messages using the CodeRED system’s robust dialing infrastructure that is entirely managed by its parent company, Emergency Communications Network. This access will allow calls to be delivered seconds after County or City officials launch a message. Additionally, Nolan County/City of Sweetwater will have the ability to better target notifications geographically, only notifying those community members impacted by an alert.

Nolan County/City of Sweetwater’s residents who previously registered with DeltAlert have been transferred to the new CodeRED system, however all residents of Nolan County/City of Sweetwater are encouraged to update their existing information and enroll additional contact information through the Nolan County/City of Sweetwater’s enrollment page. To ensure you are included in the new CodeRED database, please visit the Nolan County Sheriff’s Office website at www.nolanso.com and click on the CodeRED logo. Residents are encouraged to enroll cellphone numbers, email addresses and business contact information.

“We look forward to using the many new features we have with CodeRED, and are pleased that our contract was transitioned to a well-known and highly reputable mass notification provider that has been providing these services for well over a decade.” – Chief Grant Madden, Emergency Management Director of the City of Sweetwater.

As a new notification feature, Nolan County/City of Sweetwater will also send alerts to subscribers of the CodeRED Mobile Alert app. The Mobile Alert app provides users geo-based public safety alerts that impact them at their current location. The app provides an additional method for Nolan County/City of Sweetwater to communicate messages to not only local residents, but also to those traveling through the area. “Once you download the free app, even if you travel to another CodeRED community, you will be notified of those alerts directly on your smartphone.

About Emergency Communications Network

Headquartered in Ormond Beach, Fla., Emergency Communications Network (ECN), LLC (ECN) has pioneered high-speed emergency notification services capable of reaching millions of citizens in minutes. ECN’s sophisticated network supports a Web-based product suite featuring six major services: CodeRED^® which enables local government officials to communicate time-sensitive, personalized messages via voice, email and text messaging; CodeRED Weather Warning™ which provides automated alerts to citizens in the path of severe weather just moments after a warning has been issued by the National Weather Service; CityWatch™, a premise and Web-based, full featured outbound and inbound communication notification system; SmartNotice™, a streamlined notification solution for businesses; My Daily Call™ for scheduling calls to check on at-risk individuals, including the elderly, infirm and latchkey kids and Code-ED^® for use by educational systems to improve communications with their school communities. For more information, visit www.ecnetwork.com.

In the event of a natural disaster such as a tornado, fire, or disease outbreak, a man-made incident such as hostage situation, kidnapping, robbery or even a prisoner escaping, do YOU want to be informed? When commuting, do YOU want to be aware of any city or utility alerts such as road closings, search and rescue operations or even water usage restriction alerts? Are you seldom at home or do you commute to the Sweetwater Nolan County area for work? If YES, click here to access the “DeltAlert® sign up portal” and sign up NOW! Unlike the existing 9-1-1 information system, DeltAlert® is an essential piece of communication infrastructure utilized by the Sweetwater Nolan County Office of Emergency Management and law enforcement to inform citizens via fax, cellular phone, SMS text and TDD/TTY of emergency events in the community and surrounding area. When you sign up, submit your phone number(s) into the system that you would like to be contacted on directly.  You can then set the priorities as to which number the system will notify first, second, and so on. Your information will remain confidential and secure and you will not receive phone calls or be solicited. Everyone is encouraged to sign up; the process is simple and it costs you nothing.

For detailed information visit the DeltAlert® web site or contact Chief Grant Madden, Sweetwater Fire Department at 325.235.4304.

While many people are entirely aware of the dangers associated with Facebook as with any other social network, many teens are just now getting started and creating their first account. Unfortunately, as they explore their new freedoms, there are bad people who seek to exploit these new Facebook members.

In an effort to combat this problem and keep parents informed, Anne Collier and Larry Magid, Co-Directors of ConnectSafely.org have assembled a guidebook, A Parents’ Guide to Facebook. The guidebook is designed to help you understand what Facebook is and how to use it safely. With it, you will be better informed and able to communicate with young Facebook users in your life more effectively. That’s important because 1) if something goes wrong, we want our children to come to us and 2) as the Internet becomes increasingly social and mobile, a parent’s guidance and support are ever more key to young people’s well-being in social media and technology. The guidebook is published in partnership with the iKeepSafe Coalition.

Click here to read or print out the 34-page guide in PDF format.