In some areas, local government has an automated telephone notification system, which is an off-site calling system that will dial each phone in a designated area and deliver a recorded message about the emergency, such as fire, flood, or chemical spills. Different companies will provide the service and their name may be used to describe the service. Some examples are Reverse 911®, Wide Area Rapid Notification (WARN)®, CodeRED®, RapidReach®, or Telephone Emergency Notification System (TENS)®. If your local government has this system, you will be contacted if your home is in the call area to be notified. If phone lines are busy, the system will attempt to redial those numbers a predetermined number of times to make contact. If an answering machine picks up the call, the emergency message will be left on the machine, and that telephone number will not be called again. In some areas, cell phone numbers can be listed for an address and they can be called, or texted a message, depending upon the software.

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