FlashAlert has collected and distributed school weather closure information to the news media for 43 years. With the arrival of the Internet two decades ago, the system grew from 60 school districts in Portland to more than 10,000 users across the NW and in Colorado Springs.
To make the system useful year-round, FlashAlert added a channel for news releases. Nearly every police and fire agency, from Longview to Medford, now use FlashAlert. In Portland, it distributes about three dozen news releases a day.
Emergency messages are delivered via email, a web page that the media works from, and files pushed into news media websites. News releases are sent via email and the website.
Some organizations allow the public to self-subscribe to their emergency messages and/or news releases. FlashAlert Messenger delivers those messages to subscribers via email, and push notifications through the FA Messenger app for iOS and Android.