Washington County shows 'Genesis Protect' evacuation tool to Springdale council

Bridget Bhutinsky of Washington County presented the Genesis Protect mapping platform during the June 10 Springdale Town Council meeting, explaining how the tool provides zone assignments, evacuation routing, shelter locations and turn‑by‑turn guidance to residents and nonresidents alike. The county rolled out the tool under a five‑county partnership and integrated it with local 911 registries and Everbridge; the website is protect.genesis.com and an app is available in standard app stores.

Bhutinsky described the system as an additional layer that can automatically ingest state transportation and closure information and use that to push evacuation instructions. "It allows us to send information out...to people through their phones and emails on evacuation routes," she said. Questions from council and the public covered who has authority to trigger an evacuation message (the sheriff and fire officials, coordinated with county incident management), whether shelter locations can be designated in alerts (yes, that feature can be enabled), and whether multiple addresses or workplace/school locations can be tracked (the system supports multi‑location registration and geo‑based alerts).

Staff described the system as complementary to existing Everbridge and reverse‑911 workflows and noted that it can also be used for shelter‑in‑place and traffic‑flow information, not solely evacuations. Council members welcomed the added capability and asked staff to coordinate outreach to encourage app downloads and address schedule/implementation questions for fiber and other infrastructure projects noted earlier in the meeting.