Council approves five‑year agreement to use HAAS Alert notifications for emergency vehicles

The Atoka City Council approved entering a multi‑year agreement with HAAS (Haas) Alert Services to broadcast emergency-vehicle and road-closure notifications to mapping apps and to equip local response vehicles with the vendor's devices.

Mister Mullins described pilot data from nearby EMS deployments and said HAAS Alert had notified thousands of devices in countywide tests: EMS units alerted roughly 1,420 devices in two months when responding, and road-closure messages reached about 44,282 devices across the county during tests the staff presented.

Staff proposed purchasing two in-vehicle devices to put in one city truck and one Tahoe to be used by drone operators and emergency-management staff. The contract includes a five‑year commitment with a cancellation clause permitting termination if funding is not available. Staff said they have $2,500 in Emergency Management Performance Grant (EMPG) funding that could be applied to initial costs; meeting presenters cited a recurring annual service charge of $798 per year for the service after initial purchase.

Mullins said the system also offers an optional responder‑to‑responder feature that can alert drivers and display vehicle‑mounted LEDs when multiple emergency vehicles are converging on an intersection. Staff described additional operational uses: publishing road closures to widely used navigation apps and providing mapping access to coordinate multi‑agency responses. The council approved the contract and authorized staff to proceed.

Staff said the proposal included a first‑year purchase price for the devices (staff did not provide a definitive figure during the meeting transcript) and that the recurring yearly service fee is $798; they also noted the vendor integrates with apps such as Waze and Google Maps as that capability becomes available across vehicle platforms.