NEWS
New alert system goes live in Bowie
The City of Bowie has initiated a new community alert system that went live on Oct. 3.
Kirk Higgins, city emergency management coordinator, explains with this system a citizen inside the city limits can select the alerts they wish to receive whether it be community events or severe weather alerts and how to receive those for example on a cell phone.
Announcements might include the dates for a festival or news about a broken water main. It also automatically sends national severe weather alerts for tornadoes or storms.
“While it is similar to what the county provides, it is easier to use and allows you to update it when you want,” said Higgins.
The subscriber can set the alerts or messages to come in a phone call, text message, email or through Alexa.
Those preferences can be changed at any time in the future. Higgins said one of the great features is being able to narrow down a specific area of the city for an alert, for example, a broken water main impacting a five-block area in town. Alerts could go out just to those in the impact area not to everyone in the system.
“It can be tailored to whatever we need by simply drawing a box on a map of the city, which creates a lot of options,” said the coordinator.
Community announcements will include utility outages, wildfires, floods, public health alerts and criminal activity.
Community events could include Jim Bowie Days, Chicken and Bread Days, Second Monday and other similar items.
This service is provided free of charge to the residents of Bowie. Higgins added if you reside outside the city, but work inside the city you could use the work address to receive alerts that impact that area. Citizens can sign up at hyper-reach.com/txcityofbowiesignup.html, call or text 940-531-9400. For an Alexa, the citizens asks it to enable hyper-reach.
The second community meeting on needs for an emergency room or hospital in Bowie is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Nov. 19 at the Bowie Community Center.
This is the second meeting to discuss these needs following the closure of the Faith Community Health Center emergency room on Oct. 6, just shy of a year of operation. More than 200 people attended that first meeting, where discussion centered on the creation of a taxing district to support any sort of medical facility.
Citizens in the Bowie area are encouraged to attend and take part in these discussions.
The Bowie City Council has moved its Nov. 18 meeting to 6 p.m. on Nov. 19 where three new council members will take the oath of office.
Councilors include Laura Sproles, precinct two, Brandon Walker, precinct one and Laramie Truax, precinct two. After the votes are canvassed and the oaths given, a mayor pro tem will be selected.
The new members will jump right into training as City Attorney Courtney Goodman-Morris provides an orientation and discussion of duties for council members.
City Manager Bert Cunningham will make his monthly report on the following topics: Nelson Street, which opened last Thursday, update on the sewer line replacement project, substation transformer placement and information on medical companies.
A closed executive session on the Laura McCarn vs. City of Bowie lawsuit is scheduled. The suit arose in November 2022 when the city broached selling some 25 acres it owns on Lake Amon G. Carter, originally part of the land purchased for the 500-acre Bowie Reservoir completed in 1985.
McCarn challenges the ownership of the property stating it should revert to the original owners since it was not used for the lake.
This 24.35 acre tract is located at the end of Indian Trail Road surrounded by the lake and the Silver Lakes Ranch subdivision.
One of Bowie’s major thoroughfares, Nelson Street, was reopened Thursday after one busy block has been closed since August 2021 when a section of the street failed.
Construction finally came to an end on Thursday when the street, including the Nelson and Mill intersection were reopened. Mayor Gaylynn Burris, City Manager Bert Cunningham, Councilors TJay McEwen and Stephanie Post, Engineer Mike Tibbetts and Public Works Director Stony Lowrance met at the site Thursday morning and removed the barricades. It only took a few minutes for vehicles to start arriving and drivers were excited to go through on the new roadway.
This section of Bowie has endured flooding and drainage problems for many years and in the summer of 2023 the city council finally bit the bullet and sought bids for the repair work expected to top $3 million. In August 2021 a one block section of Nelson was closed when a large sinkhole appeared on the north side of the street. Traffic had to be diverted including all the school traffic flowing from the nearby junior high and intermediate.
Read the full story in the weekend Bowie News.
Top photo – (Left) Mike Tibbetts, engineer with Hayter Engineering, talks with Bowie City Manager Bert Cunningham as they look over the massive drainage project on Nelson Street.
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