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By JOYANNA LOVE / Senior Staff Writer

Chilton County residents can now receive notifications on their phone through the Chilton County E911 app.

“It will allow anyone who downloads it to receive weather updates for Chilton County,”

Chilton County E911 Director Dan Wright said. “We also believe it has value in that it can send out other notifications … it gives us the ability to serve as a notification system, if there is some type of large scale event — (if) there’s a large traffic incident, we can push that out to the users.”

The department has wanted to have such an app for about two years.

The app is available for Apple or Android by searching for Chilton County 911 in the device’s store. The app is free to download. Wright said the app had been live for about three weeks. He said he expects to have some user comments in order to continue to improve the app.

He said just when weather notifications are sent through the app may be tweaked because it was sending out freeze warnings.

“While cold weather can be life threatening to specific populations to pets and such, I don’t know that that’s what the majority of users want to get,” Wright said

Wright commented that he did not want notifications to be so frequent that people begin to ignore them.

He said it would definitely give notification for thunderstorms and severe weather, including tornadoes.

The app also features the Chilton County E911 Twitter feed content, which gives updates on incidents being responded to in the County Wright, said this would make the information available to those who do not have a Twitter account.

A list of commonly needed governmental offices and other services phone numbers are also included in the app. Wright said many people will often call 911 when they are trying to find the number for a locksmith or the tag office and this can keep dispatchers from answering an emergency call as quickly.

Users can also look up recent jail arrests and active calls. Wright said there was a time delay in posting law enforcement and first responders in order to vet them. Some responses may also not be available for the same reason.