Oxfordshire Council launches flood text alerts via Avanquest

Avanquest, the global software developer and company behind text service, ‘Text Message Server’ (perhaps a rather unimaginative name — still, does-what-it-says-on-the-tin), have announced that Oxfordshire County Council has launched a text alert service for flood information.

Floods in Oxford are a bit of an issue. Here’s a BBC story from July last year with more details. Back in July, following excessive rainfall, the rivers Cherwell and
Isis/Thames, which traverse Oxfordshire, flooded. Advance warning of a potential flood gives property owners the chance to prepare and take the necessary action to minimise damage. Move stuff upstairs, sandbag the whole place, that sort of thing.

Text alerts for possible impending floods will, I suspect, be extremely, extremely valuable for residents whose areas are prone. It’s very easy in this connected world to sometimes get disconnected from the hive. Simply going out for a meal for the evening then going home and going to bed without viewing any television or listening to radio can result in you missing vital updates. Rare for people to leave their mobile handsets at home though — so texting is a brilliant medium of choice for updates.

I’m not sure about the process is for signing up to receive alerts — when I find out, I’ll update this post.