To continue receiving Douglas County’s severe weather and emergency alerts, residents must enroll in a new notification system.

The new system, provided by Everbridge, is offered to area residents free of charge through a Northeast Region Homeland Security Council grant, said Jillian Rodrigue, Douglas County Emergency Management assistant director. The old notification system, provided by IRIS, will be deactivated Tuesday night.

Area residents can enroll in the new notification system online at www.douglascountyks.org or on Douglas County Emergency Management’s Facebook or Twitter pages, Rodrigue said.

In addition to existing notification services, such as text alerts, phone calls and emails about severe weather or public emergencies, the new alert system will cover 11 area counties and send messages based on each resident’s individual address, Rodrigue said. The system also has a ‘confirm and quit’ system.

“The first time a resident sees a message or gets a phone call they can confirm with the system,” Rodrigue said. “Once confirmed, the system will stop bothering them and they won’t get any additional alerts.”

The IRIS notification system was used by the county for around three years, Rodrigue said. In all, around 3,700 Douglas County residents used the service.

So far in all 11 counties covered by the new system, around 6,000 people have signed up for the new service, Rodrigue said.

“It’s going to be really good for people to receive less notifications, but really receive them when they need to take some action,” she said.