Putnam County has been awarded a $187,000 Homeland Security grant. A portion of that grant will be used to help purchase a “Reverse 911 System”. Putnam 911 will match the grant with up to $20,000 to complete the project.

The “Reverse 911 System” will allow residents to be notified by telephone of emergency situations. The new system will work in conjunction with our GIS mapping system and will allow residents of a particular area to be notified by dialing each phone and playing a pre-recorded emergency message. The system would allow for hundreds of calls to be made in a matter of minutes.

Putnam's RFP was awarded to DCC in Franklin, TN.  The new system became operational November 2004.

In March of 2006, Putnam County's system was expanded to cover all 15 Upper Cumberland Counties through a $185,000 regional homeland security grant. A mirrored site was also installed in Overton County.

Frontier Communications donated all the long distance charges for callouts and gave a special rate for the T-1 lines needed to operate the system. Twinlakes Telephone donated both the T-1 lines and the long distance for the Overton County system. We are very thankful to both phone companies for their cooperation and partnership in the new system