Emergency Preparedness

There's A Lot You Can Do!

Planning ahead is simple and inexpensive. What you can do gives you the tools you need. What Watertown is doing outlines the City's emergency preparedness efforts. Want to help out if disaster strikes? Getting involved lists volunteer opportunities. Learning more gives you the bigger picture and more resources. In an emergency tells you more about what to do if an emergency really happens.

Extreme Heat Safety Tips

Extreme heat is generally defined as a prolonged period of excessively hot weather, which may be accompanied by high humidity. In Massachusetts, a "heat wave" is usually defined as a period of three or more consecutive days above 90 °F.

Watertown Alert

Fires, road closures, gas leaks. How will you find out about citywide emergencies and disasters? Your safety is our top concern. Early warning helps save lives and property. That's why the City of Watertown wants to make sure you know about emergencies and disasters as they happen. Watertown will use WatertownAlert through the Everbridge SmartGIS System to let you know about issues that may affect your safety. WatertownAlert will allow the City of Watertown to contact thousands of residents in seconds so you find out about an emergency right away.

Receive important messages from the City on your phone, email, and more. Watertown Alert can deliver messages to you any way you want-on your home phone, cell phone, email, and more. This way, we can reach you in any emergency. We may also use the system in non-emergency situations to let you know about important City-related events, such as meetings, parade closures, or street cleaning changes.

How it Works

The process begins when the City issues a message about a potential safety hazard or concern. Messages will be sent to all standard voice and text communication devices, including listed land line phones, cell phones, email, and more. If you don't confirm receipt of the message, the system will try to reach your second contact number or email. The system will continue trying to contact you until it receives a confirmation from you.

Your help is critical. The success of this service relies on you. Having your latest contact information is the only way to ensure that we can contact you in an emergency. Please update your contact information as soon as possible. Updating is easy and only takes a few minutes, sign up here. Thank you in advance for you cooperation and participation in this important program.

Sincerely,

The Watertown Emergency Management Team