Milford announces new emergency communication system

MILFORD, Del. – The City of Milford is implementing a new emergency communication system from RAVE technology.

“One of the things we want to be able to do is notify residents of any type of an emergency in town.” Milford City Manager Mark Whitfield said that while recent natural disasters elevated their concern, it was more local incidents that drove the city to modernize their emergency communications. “The thing that really raised that the need for it, or pressed the need for it, was the number of power outages that we had over this past summer and our ability to be able to notify residents of those power outages and what to expect,” Whitfield said.

The biggest challenge for Milford was a logistical one, taking months to compile a complete database of contact information for residents. “What we do is we take information from customers utility bills and put them into the system.”

Residents can opt in to receive alerts however they prefer–via text, call, or email. Whitfield said the new system has applications far beyond just natural disasters: “It keeps people informed, from the simple things like trash collection up to, you know, having a perpetrator within your neighborhood that you need to know about.”

City officials also said they’re in preliminary budget discussions for potential use of Starlink as an emergency network for first responders. Those budget talks are for Milford’s FY26 budget.
Their first responders currently use the FirstNet system.