The city of Hot Springs has been hard at work planning how to manage the anticipated influx of visitors for Monday's total solar eclipse.
One resource that is being utilized is the CodeRED emergency notification system.
"CodeRED is an emergency alert notification platform," Rachel Keeling, the city's stormwater coordinator, said.
"You can choose how you want the notification, so you can get a phone call, an email, a text message or through the mobile app. We use it for a wide range of things. So if Utilities is doing work in an area, and (people are) going to be without water, they send a notification."
Keeling said the city has been sending out notifications for many things, including fire hydrant testing and solid waste schedule changes.
"It also automatically uses weather alerts," she said. "So if there's a severe thunderstorm warning, if there's a tornado, flash flooding, then you get an alert automatically, however you have signed up. So for the eclipse, I feel like we're just trying to use what we've got in the best way possible. So there are several different ways that we can use CodeRED. If we've got traffic congestion, and nobody can get through. If there's an emergency, we can push it to a specific area so that only people in that area get the notification."
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The platform is used by thousands of counties and municipalities across the country, so if visitors are already signed up for alerts at home, they will automatically get location-based alerts here.
"With CodeRED, you can do a mobile app," Keeling said. "And so whenever I travel down south -- my family's from southern Louisiana -- whenever I travel down there, their municipality uses CodeRED, too. So I get notifications whenever I go down there if there's any sort of severe weather."
Courtney Kizer, the city's public information director, said another benefit is being able to adjust the size of the area receiving notifications.
"She can also control radius for the area, and I think that's nice. ... I could see where people sign up for things, and they get annoyed that they're getting stuff that doesn't apply to them. And so it allows you to control that radius, and she could pick a specific area," she said.
Since the CodeRED platform has multiple ways to deliver alerts, Kizer said it helps get notifications out to a wider audience instead of only posting them on social media.
"We're trying to use all the things we have in our toolbox as far as notifications, how we get our information out," she said. "Obviously, with your different generations, your younger generations are really into certain social media platforms. Your older generations may use this due to the weather portion of it specifically.
"Visitors may actually have that whereas they're not going to follow our social media platforms, so that makes it easy. If they already have it downloaded for their area and they traveled to ours, they don't have to do anything differently. Other generations may be really into websites and signing up for notifications, so we're trying to make sure that no matter what way you prefer to get your notifications, we're hitting every area we can."
Kizer said the biggest concern for the city is the possible loss of cellular service due to the anticipated influx of visitors.
"Most of our law enforcement and fire departments work off of an AWIN (Arkansas Wireless Information Network) channel," she said. "But we do have extra radios that we're going to pass out to specific people. ... We have partnered with some of our local radio stations that do not require Wi-Fi to get message service out, so we kind of have that planning in place just in case."
City offices will be closed Monday, Kizer said.
"I think that there is a plan for specific departments that do get some of those kinds of emergency calls, 'Hey, a tree fell in the road we can't pass,'" Keeling said. "So I think there are a couple of departments that do plan on having somebody to be able to answer phones. I think streets and public works will probably at least have their phones rolled over, but again if we lose any sort of Wi-Fi or cell service, that may be kind of a moot point.
"Hopefully, that doesn't happen, but I think that there is going to be somebody on some of those to answer some questions and phone calls," she said.
The city's solid waste department plans to run its routes early to account for traffic concerns. Monday's commercial route will run Sunday, starting at 2 a.m., and the residential routes will be run Monday, as normal, starting at 2 a.m.
"Citizens are encouraged to place Monday's collection by the curb the night before to ensure pickup at 2 a.m. Residential routes include garbage, recycling, and leaf & mulch," a release from the city said. Transfer stations will be closed Monday.
Hot Springs Stormwater Coordinator Rachel Keeling, left, and Public Information Director Courtney Kizer discuss the city's plans for Monday's total solar eclipse. (The Sentinel-Record/Donald Cross)