NORWICH – In a few months, the City of Norwich Emergency Management Office will be the first in New York State to unveil a new EMO smart phone app for the community, showing that city officials can stay ahead of the game in the digital age to provide up-to-date information when weather conditions get tough.

The app, which city officials hope to release free to the public by mid to late spring, is currently in development. City Emergency Management Officer A. Jones explained that while conventional modes of getting information out to the masses are useful, the new app is going to allow officials to reach a larger demographic at lightning speed.

The Emergency Management Office already utilizes social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter to reach the community, Jones said. More than 230 locals follow it on Twitter, and more than 3,400 have liked it on Facebook. Moreover, email notifications and radio updates are put out regularly, along with a texts, phone calls, webcam and weather station feed, NY-Alert notifications (including road and school closures) and preparedness information. “We do a lot,” added Jones, “and the app is going to bring all of that together into one place ... It will be like one-stop shopping for people to get information.”

The app is currently in development with OVC, a nationwide communication technology firm looking to expand its services with emergency management apps for local municipalities. The City of Norwich will be the first test subject for the company, explained Jones. Subsequently, the company will develop the app for free and the only charge paid by the city will be for annual updates and maintenance – a $1,200 fee that will come from the EMO budget.