Northbrook Wants To Notify You

Along with a new website, launched in January, the village of Northbrook has also deployed a new tool for spreading information to residents, called “Northbrook Notify.”

The automated messaging system allows the village to communicate alerts to residents who sign up via telephone, text message or e-mail. An enhancement to the village’s pre-existing auto-dialer system, Northbrook Notify will be used to contact residents about such matters as community-wide water boil orders, Amber alerts and neighborhood hydrant testing, according to Northbrook Communications Manager Cheryl Fayne-DePersio.  

“Before, we worked off a list of hard landline numbers that we got from the phone company. Those numbers were mapped,” she explained. “Every parcel that had a phone had a dot in it, so you know the block would have a dot on every house. Over the years, we saw those dots dropping off because people were giving up their landlines and getting cell phones.”

The village couldn’t easily add the cell phones of every resident to its system, since phones are registered where they are purchased—and that may not be in Northbrook. So the new system allows residents to input their cell phone and address online or by turning in a form.

“Once you launch it, it automatically dials all those people,” Fayne said. “We can probably hit the whole village in less than 20 minutes. And it’s just because of the way the phone lines are being used.”

She stressed that the village will use the communication system as infrequently as possible.

“All our phone calls and the text messages will be used very rarely, hopefully, in an ideal world, never,” Fayne said.

The village first used Northbrook Notify after the Feb. 2 blizzard, in order to let residents know about delayed garbage pickup, the and to clear snow from their hydrants.

“We would not do that for every single snowstorm,” Fayne added.

The system allows the village to target specific areas of town for phone calls—so neighbors of one shopping center received phone calls during the blizzard to warn them there might be lots of noise late at night when the shopping center plowed its lot. That avoids unnecessary calls to the police department, Fayne explained.

It also allows the village to create groups of phone numbers to contact in certain situations—say, all members of the village’s Community Emergency Response Team or all firefighters.

“The system is more complex than most residents know,” Fayne said.

It is so sophisticated, in fact, that it allows people who are called to respond to the message by pressing one or two to indicate, say, whether or not they will be able to report for duty. The system can keep calling, for example, until ten firefighters have reported that yes, they can make it.

Residents who wish to sign up for Northbrook Notify may do so on the village website or by filling out a Northbrook Notify form, available at , at the and at the or by calling 847-272-5050, ext. 4223 or 4226.