Dickinson County Courthouse, Spirit Lake, Iowa

Dickinson Alert

DickinsonAlert is an Emergency Notification System that serves Dickinson County, Iowa. DickinsonAlert allows citizens to sign up for various types of notifications including severe weather alerts and local emergency notifications. In addition, many communities use the system to push alerts to their residents for things like snow removal, road closures, and utility disruptions. Messages can be issued via a voice call, text message, and/or e-mail.

Types of alerts you can sign up for include:

  • Emergency Alerts from Public Safety Agencies in Dickinson County (included automatically when you register)
  • Optional Alerts
    • Weather Alerts (Watches & Warnings)
    • Community Alerts from all 10 cities in Dickinson County (select the city or cities you want - these messages are typically non-emergency messages such as notices for snow emergencies, changes in garbage pickup, and so forth)
    • Special needs information
    • Alerts from the Spirit Lake Community School District (text SLINDIANS to 69310)
    • Dickinson County Trails (text DCTRAILS to 69310)

Don't confuse DickinsonAlert with Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs) — these are two separate systems. Learn more about Wireless Emergency Alerts here.

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Important

Save the following items in your contact list as "DickinsonAlert" so you will know when we're calling, texting, or e-mailing you:

  • 712-555-5555 for phone calls
  • 69310 for text messages
  • noreply@dcem.us for e-mail messages

Just Visiting?

If you're visiting Dickinson County for a weekend or a short period of time, we offer a quick way to sign-up for DickinsonAlert. Simply text DICKINSON to 69310 and you will be registered to receive weather alerts by text message to your cell phone. When it's to head home, just text STOP to 69310 to stop the messages. NOTE: This service is geared for tourists and those visiting for a short period of time. For our regular and seasonal residents, we recommend signing up for the full service that tailors weather alerts to your location and also offers more options.

Live in a Surrounding County?

Anyone can register for DickinsonAlert, however, if you live in a surrounding county, you will want to register for alerts in your county as well. Here are links to registration pages for mass notification systems in the counties surrounding Dickinson County:

Frequently Asked Questions

What is DickinsonAlert?
DickinsonAlert is a system that allows a client to immediately send out text messages, voice calls, emails and pages in the event of an emergency or severe weather event.

In addition to the opt-in warning notification service, the system has many potential beneficial uses. For example, the system provides the client with the capability to automatically send a recorded voice message to each phone number in the client’s database or to specifically targeted areas identified through electronic maps. The system can also be used for other special messages for which users “opt in” or request notification on certain topics or events.

Please note that no communication distribution method is infallible. For that reason, redundant systems of emergency notification, including the outdoor siren system, telephone, e-mail, text messages, and external systems on commercial radio and TV stations or weather radios may be used to send out alerts as soon as possible.