Rockwall County, TX (March 12, 2026) – Rockwall County will participate in a statewide emergency alert drill on April 2, 2026.
Summary: On April 2, 2026, at 10:00 AM, the Rockwall County Office of Emergency Management will participate in a statewide drill by sending a test IPAWS alert and a Nixle Emergency Alert.
Full Details: On March 10, 2026, the Texas Division of Emergency Management informed the Rockwall County Office of Emergency Management of a statewide drill scheduled for April 2, 2026, from 10:00 AM to 12:30 PM. The purpose of this drill is for cities, counties, school districts, primary and secondary education programs, colleges and universities, councils of government, river authorities, sovereign tribal nations, law enforcement agencies, and any other entities with emergency alerting authority to test their emergency alerting systems.
The Rockwall County Office of Emergency Management utilizes two systems for emergency alerts.
- The first is Nixle Emergency Alerts. Residents can sign up for this system by texting “RCOEM” to 888777. After signing up, you will receive text messages with emergency alerts, road closures, and other important information.
- The second system is IPAWS (Integrated Public Alert and Warning System). IPAWS allows us to send a single message that can be relayed through multiple platforms, including NOAA Weather Radios, internet-based services, the Emergency Alert System (television and radio broadcasts), and Wireless Emergency Alerts (cell phones).
The Rockwall County Office of Emergency Management is the IPAWS alerting authority for Rockwall County and the cities within the county. We can send alerts for most emergency situations, except for AMBER Alerts (which are issued by the state) and weather alerts (which are issued by the National Weather Service).
We would like to briefly explain Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA). If you have ever received an AMBER Alert on your phone, you have already received a Wireless Emergency Alert. These alerts are sent to cell towers, not directly to individual phones. The cell tower then broadcasts the alert to all compatible phones connected to that tower.
For example, if you are in Royse City within Rockwall County but your phone is connected to a cell tower located in Collin County, you may receive the Rockwall County alert, the Collin County alert, or both. While this example uses Rockwall and Collin counties, it is important to understand that there are more than 2,000 alerting authorities nationwide.
On April 2 at 10:00 AM, the Rockwall County Office of Emergency Management will send the following test messages.
Nixle Message:
“Test This is a test of the Rockwall County Emergency Management Nixle Emergency Alert System. More details at facebook.com/rcemo Test”
If you receive Nixle alerts through the mobile app or by email, you will see the same message. However, the event code will display as “Police Activity.” We are using this event code because it will trigger the Wireless Emergency Alert system.
During a test last year, we used the “Test Event” code and learned that our software will not send a Wireless Emergency Alert unless we use an event code that is authorized to trigger WEA notifications. If you would like to see the event codes we are authorized to send, we have included an image of those codes taken directly from our IPAWs application below.
Wireless Emergency Alert Message:
“Test: Rockwall County Emergency Management is testing our emergency alert system. Test.”
If you have questions about the test, please email emergencymanagement@rockwallcountytexas.com
Press release submitted by Jim Barto, Rockwall County, edited for publication in Blue Ribbon News.
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