Grand Canyon River Alerts: An Emergency Alert System Designed for Satellite Texting Devices
NPS/J. Baird
Get real-time alerts for Grand Canyon river emergencies
The Grand Canyon River Alert system, a collaborative effort between the USGS Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center (GCMRC), Coconino County Emergency Management (CCEM), the National Weather Service (NWS), and the National Park Service (NPS), has been launched to significantly enhance safety measures for boaters and hikers navigating the Grand Canyon. This system sends critical messages on hazards like extreme weather and flash floods directly to your Garmin, SPOT, or other satellite messaging device.
The system is designed to provide timely alerts on a range of critical incidents including boating hazards, missing persons, dam-related events, extreme weather conditions, and flash floods. These alerts are crucial for the timely communication of risk to individuals in Grand Canyon.
Subscription Details and Support
It is imperative that users register their satellite devices prior to arriving at Lees Ferry to ensure they can receive critical alerts.
To subscribe to the Grand Canyon River Alerts, users can text GCRIVERALERTS to 928-707-7842 from their personal mobile phones or satellite texting devices. Once subscribed, you will receive a confirmation message. If you do not receive a confirmation message do not assume that you are subscribed. It is essential to receive a confirmation message to ensure successful subscription before embarking on any trip. Alternatively, users can sign up for email versions of alerts at https://smart911.com.
Technical Considerations
It's important to note that satellite texting devices, such as those from Garmin and SPOT, have limitations on the number of custom messages they can receive during the length of a typical river trip. All messages from the Grand Canyon River Alert system, including signup and confirmation messages, count towards this limit. Subscribers will be automatically removed from the list at the end of the commercial boating season (November of each year) to prevent receiving unwanted messages.
Users can opt out at any time by texting "LEAVE GCRIVERALERTS" or "STOP" to stop all messages.
Essential Tips for Garmin/InReach Users
Successfully subscribing to the alert system may require additional configuration of your satellite texting device, specifically if it is a Garmin/ InReach device. The Rave Mobile Safety alert system managed by Coconino County Emergency Management can only accept the exact characters of GCRIVERALERTS during signup. If additional text or links are included in the message, subscribing (or unsubscribing) will fail, and a confirmation message will not be received.
Unmodified Garmin text messages usually include two additional components: a link to the user's location and a signature. It is strongly recommended to test the content of your satellite message by sending a text to your personal cell phone first to ensure neither of these components are included. Both can be removed by modifying settings at https://explore.garmin.com. Additionally, satellite texting devices must send out a message to a number before they can receive inbound messages, so getting the signup message format correct is the only method to receive alerts on these devices.
Agency Contacts
Joe Thomas, U.S. Geological Survey (jthomas@usgs.gov)
Tim Carter, Coconino County Emergency Management (tcarter@coconino.az.gov)
Megan Taylor, National Weather Service-Flagstaff (megan.c.taylor@noaa.gov)
Joelle Baird, National Park Service (Joelle_Baird@nps.gov)
Flooding around Galloway Creek/Dubendorf Rapid on August 22, 2024.
