All eleven Georgia Welcome Centers will soon be equipped with weather alert radios to help insure the safety of visiting motorists and the state’s on-site employees...
All eleven Georgia Welcome Centers will soon be equipped with weather alert radios to help insure the safety of visiting motorists and the state’s on-site employees. The radios are being provided free-of-charge by the Georgia Insurance Information Service (GIIS).
The property and casualty insurers’ trade association purchased and donated the radios to the Georgia Department(s) of Transportation and Economic Development, the agencies responsible for the maintenance and operation of the welcome centers. The weather alert radios are programmable by county so that each radio will be set up to receive weather alert warnings in the near-by counties that surround each center.
At a presentation ceremony today at the Interstate 20 Welcome Center in Haralson County, Georgia DOT State Maintenance Engineer David Crim thanked the insurers. “We are very pleased that GIIS is helping to make our Welcome Centers the most sophisticated facilities of their type in the country. Soon, we will bring online WiFi capabilities as well so that motorists will be able to connect to the internet while they relax at our centers.”
“We have a good deal of severe weather in this state and our foremost concern is for the safety of our residents and passing travelers. These radios will provide vital life-saving information when severe weather rapidly develops,” Haralson Sheriff Eddie Mixon added.
“Our organization is pleased to provide another level of immediate safety information to Georgia’s welcome centers,” said David Colmans, executive director of the Georgia Insurance Information Service. “Our industry protects the financial interests of people and their property and we are as concerned with the personal safety of visitors to Georgia as we are the state’s nine million residents,” he added.
Jeffery Tatum, Director of Welcome Centers for the Georgia Department of Economic Development, concluded, “We are very proud of the services that our eleven welcome centers provide, and adding another level of information for our visitors and employees makes these weather alert radios very useful and important to our centers.”
The Georgia Insurance Information Service represents insurers that write more than 70 percent of the auto, renters and homeowners insurance in Georgia. The GIIS website is www.giis.org.
The Georgia Department of Transportation is committed to providing a safe, seamless and sustainable transportation system that supports Georgia’s economy and is sensitive to both its citizens and its environment. For general information on the Georgia DOT, please visit our website (www.dot.state.ga.us).