Resident reports misdirected emergency alerts; county says it switched vendors

A resident, Marcus Hanover, reported that he had begun receiving emergency alerts for Union County, South Carolina, instead of Union County, Georgia and that notifications often arrived late. He told the meeting that the county's CodeRed link failed and that calls routed to what he described as an offshore call center with limited English capability, and he urged officials to investigate because of public-safety risk. "I started receiving Union County emergency alerts for rain, thunder, storms, and hail usually about 30 minutes after they arrived at my house, and... they were for Union County, South Carolina, and I was no longer getting Union County, Georgia emergency alerts," he said.

A county speaker responded that the county ended its relationship with the prior vendor, signed a contract with a new vendor called "Ramon" a few weeks earlier, and that staff were still finalizing databases and expected to launch sign-ups over the next month. "We are now working with a new system called Ramon... we got the contract signed a couple weeks ago," the speaker said, and invited contact with the office for follow-up questions.