Columbia County officials urged residents to register for HyperReach, the county's emergency-notification system, saying roughly 15,000 contact points are signed up compared with a population of about 170,000.

Bill Botham, Columbia County Emergency Management Agency outreach manager, said the 15,000 figure counts phone numbers and email addresses rather than unique people. "We have somewhere in the neighborhood of 15,000 signed up, but that is notified numbers or email addresses," Botham said. "If you have registered a landline and a cell phone and an email address, you would count as 3." He added that the number of people who are truly connected is only a fraction of the county's population.

The county is promoting HyperReach as a tool not just for weather alerts but for geolocated, targeted community notifications. "If there's a reason that your water is going to be shut off, they can tell you ahead of time. If there's a gas leak on your block, it's geolocatable," the county communications presenter said. County officials cited hurricanes, tornadoes and flash flooding as events where minutes can make a life-or-death difference. "In something like that, 10 minutes, 30 minutes can make literally a life or death difference," Botham said.

HyperReach allows users to customize how and which alerts they receive, county officials said. Users can choose delivery methods (text, phone call, voice message), opt in or out of specific weather warnings (flash flooding, hurricane, severe thunderstorm, tornado) and subscribe to community or neighborhood-level alerts. The county contrasted HyperReach with its prior system, CodeRED, saying CodeRED delivered either every notification to all registrants or none, while HyperReach can target only affected areas.

Officials also described practical signup features: people may register a parent or a business at its address so that notifications target the correct location, and the county estimated the registration process takes about 90 seconds. To register, the county communications presenter said residents should go to Columbia County's website, find the HyperReach link at the bottom of the page and enter contact information on the HyperReach page.

No formal action, ordinance or vote was taken during the recorded public message. The segment was an informational outreach encouraging registration and explaining how HyperReach is used by emergency management, the sheriff's office and fire departments for localized alerts.