Status updates and tweets aren't just for fun anymore.

Now, they're helping to keep you safe.

“We can give them a message of any type of message that they would like to get: to their phone, to their cell phone, to their email, to their text message,” said Kirt Smith, Hamilton County Emergency Management Director.

Local agencies are using social media and other technology to help you stay safe, or at the very least, avoid being towed.

“I put it out over Facebook and Twitter,” Aurora Chief of Police Godfrey Brokenrope said. “It was successful because we didn't have to tow any vehicles off the snow emergency route.”

Smith said no matter what the occasion it all boils down to helping people get prepared for anything.

“Everybody that’s prepared is one less person that the government has to worry about and they can help their neighbor or their business,” Smith said. “So, if they’re prepared, its a lot easier on everybody.”

It is also a lot easier on those agencies themselves.

For example, the Aurora Police Department has been using social media like Facebook and Twitter to solve small crimes.

“We've had some gas drive off information where people have called in or that person them self calls in,” Chief Brokenrope said. “A lot of time it’s accidental. They drive off and don't realize it.”

Grand Island Public Works uses automated phone messages, a part of the city's Code Red system, to issue reminders about upcoming snow removal and parking bans.

“It’s just the instant reminder while you’re doing it 'Oh, I got this message so I should go do it right now' instead of you did read it in the paper, you saw it on the news, but it was the night before,” Grand Island Streets Superintendent Shannon Callahan said.

As far as his community's feedback on the new approach, Smith says it has been overwhelming.

“Everybody that I've talked to is really greatly appreciated that we've had the system,” he said. “I get comments all the time on how great it was, even though I got woke up in the middle of the night about that storm. But, that's what they need to be, woke up and alerted.”