Know Your Emergency Alerts

The City of Santa Rosa uses multiple notification and warning systems to make sure emergency alerts are delivered to the people who need the information. Make sure you are signed up for the systems that require subscription and understand how they are used for emergency communications. 


Watch Videos

The following videos provide an overview of the City’s emergency alert and warning systems in English and in Spanish. 

Review Flyer or Chart Below

Please study the information below or download the City’s alerts and warnings flyer to review all notification tools:  English  |  Spanish

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Emergency Alert System (EAS)
National public warning system that will interrupt local broadcast tv and radio programming to provide an alert in the event of a large-scale emergency. 

No registration required.

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Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) 
Urgent alerts sent as text-like messages to your mobile phone based on your location (you will only receive notification if you are in the area of the emergency). WEAs have three alert categories-- Imminent Threat, AMBER, Presidential. You must keep the factory settings on to your WEA- capable phone to receive a WEA. 

No registration required.

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SoCoAlert 
Emergency notification service providing Sonoma County first responders the ability to alert residents by landline or mobile phone, text message and email about imminent threats to life and property in specific impacted areas. Register all addresses that you’d like to receive alerts for (work, child’s school, etc.). You don’t have to be in the location of the emergency to receive alert.

Must register here OR call (866) 939-0911, press “2” at the menu, ask operator for assistance with registering for SoCoAlert.

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Nixle 
Community information distributed by Santa Rosa Police and Fire Departments. Community messages are sent to email, and for critical emergencies, Alert messages are sent via text message and email (notifications are NOT delivered by phone call). Customize your settings at nixle.com to control which types of notifications you receive.

Must register at nixle.com or text your zip code to 888-777

A few things to note about recent changes in Nixle services provided by Everbridge (6.19.20)

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Local Radio and Television 
The City communicates with local news broadcasters to provide updates during an emergency.

Tune radio to 1350 AM, 103.5 FM, 100.1 FM, 89.1 FM (bilingual), 98.7 FM (Spanish); watch preferred local TV news channel.

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Hi/Lo Sirens 
Santa Rosa police cars and fire department vehicles are outfitted with new Hi/Lo sirens, a different sound than traditional sirens. This European-style, 2-tone siren will only be used in an emergency to alert residents within specific areas of the need to evacuate.

Watch a brief video with the sound turned "on" to hear the Hi/Lo siren. 

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All Hazards NOAA Weather Radio

All Hazards NOAA Weather Radio (NWR) is a low-cost home alerting tool that can be remotely activated by the National Weather Service(NWS) to broadcast life-saving warnings issued by first responders. NWRs include battery backups. Learn how to operate your radio. To work, Sonoma County residents must tune their NWR to frequency 162.475. Radios furnished by the city of Santa Rosa are pre-programmed to this frequency. An alert sounds like this: