Shasta County public safety agencies are encouraging people to sign up for a free emergency notification system. The fires in the wine country made clear the drawbacks of other notification systems, such as the FEMA warnings which are broadcast to every cell phone in range of a certain tower. This can cause many people to evacuate when they don’t need to, causing gridlock and unnecessary mishaps. In contrast, the “Community Notification System” only sends alerts to the streets, neighborhoods or communities that are actually in the path of danger. The system will automatically contact all landline phones in a specified area, but they can’t reach cell phones unless they’re registered with the system. It’s totally free to sign up and it can easily be done online at shascom911.com by clicking on the “Code Red” icon at the bottom of the page.