Want to know when a tornado is heading toward Howard County? When Recreation and Parks is holding events or has to cancel them? When construction projects will cause road closures in your area?

You can get all that information and more by signing up for NotifyMeHoward, the county government's free notification system, launched Tuesday, Nov. 15.

"This will be an evolution of service to the public," Howard County Executive Ken Ulman said at a news conference. "We want thousands and thousands of residents to sign up for this."

Every person who signs up for the service, which is being funded through federal homeland security grants, will automatically receive tornado warnings or other emergency alerts via text message (if they provide a cell phone number).

"We've made it as simple as possible to really push the message out," Office of Emergency Management Executive Director Ryan Miller said.

Though often times people have trouble making or receiving calls on cell phones during disasters, text messages usually go right through, emergency management specialist Katrina Hein said.

Hein managed a beta test of the system with about 40 users from different walks of life.

"It's actually really simple to use," she said. "I've gotten really good feedback from everyone who's enrolled in our beta test group."

The county has been working on the system for two years as a way to get information out more quickly and efficiently in emergencies, which some jurisdictions like Montgomery County already do. But Howard's system is unique, at least in the region, in that it includes a wealth of other information users can sign up to get alerts about, such as news, special events and closings across various county departments.

"We realize that people might want to know more about when Recreation and Parks closes a field then when there is a thunderstorm," Miller said.

Users can also provide points of interests, such as home, work, school and day care addresses, so they can get alerts when anything of importance happens in that area.

"The more detail we have, the more functionality and specifics we can get into," Ulman said, noting that users can always stop subscribing to specific lists if they feel they are getting too many alerts. "It's all about the user experience."

To sign up and customize your alerts, visit http://www.notifymehoward.org and click new user. To simply sign up for tornado alerts and other emergency information sent to all subscribers, you can text "HOWARD" to 411911.