Lert News
May 2018

Dear Kiwi,

You can't say NZ has boring weather! Destructive rain and wind in Auckland with massive power cuts and then a couple of weeks later, heavy, flooding rains from Coromandel to North Otago.

After every major event, we review our operations, consequently we have changed our alert levels to provide you with better, more accurate service.

Spam

We are coming across more incidents where our e-mail alerts are being regarded as SPAM. We had a week long battle with Xtra when they blocked everything. Still, EVERY day we get a small percentage bounce back to us.
If you've changed your e-mail address, please log in to your account and update it.

E-mail vs Txt

After every event we now see people switch from e-mail only to Txt and e-mail. We have people asking us all the time what's the difference. In a nutshell it's SPEED OF DELIVERY. So we have made this short clip to help explain.

New Facebook Service

We have recently trialled a system we designed to ensure you see our Facebook posts if you wish to. We can advise you when there is a post relevant to your area and you can click on a link and go straight to it. You will be able to opt in to it. This gives you full control. Remember, Facebook is used to provide background to stories, not for alerts.

Be a Roving Reporter

With the Auckland wind storm and the flooding in Rotorua, both situations developed quicker and became more intense than expected.
Information from councils and CDEM appeared to drop off, they were possibly posting too quickly and therefore got throttled back by Facebook. We experienced this just after the Facebook changes, with Cyclone Fehi and could send just 400 people on a couple of posts despite having over 30,000 fans - hence our new service above.
You can be our eyes and ears. Just a quick message and maybe a pic. We can develop a feel for what's happening and can generate alerts based on that picture.
In the last 6 months, we've generated just 3 alerts this way, so we use this carefully.

Winter

It's just around the corner, so check you survival kit and update your family plans.

Have at least a week's worth of wood if you have a fire.

Till next time, stay safe!

The Lert Info team

Lert.info
Alerting New Zealand

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