Notifications are always problematic. As you mention not all people fit the standing assumptions.
I work in IT and practically live on face book and twitter during normal days, but when I leave for Bonneville I "unplug" and am reachable only by cell phone text message.
Luckily due to my work schedule I caught wind of the bad weather just before I was leaving work on my last day, (I normally leave for Bonneville right from work at end of shift), so I headed home to watch things.
When the first announcements were posted on face book I did see them because I was at home and actively watching radar and face book, and on the spur of the moment I called a racer I knew was in route and my message was the first he had heard of the rain delay from what I gathered.
In recent years when I leave for Bonneville, I ask a couple of friends to keep an eye on developments and to text message me if something important comes up.
Some of that responsibility falls on the racer not the SCTA, if you know you fall outside the general assumptions, you need to work out some solution yourself or be willing to pay the fuel bill for a needless trip.
One option would be for SCTA/USFRA etc. to set up a subscription for text messages/email where racers could opt in for status update text and email messages.
Then when updates got posted they would automatically get the up date by either text or email. One subscription setup could be used by all the sponsors, (SCTA, USFRA, BUB, Cook shootout etc.) Just have each sponsor have someone who knows how to post updates to their racer group.
We are in the middle of a major technology shift, some of us are familiar with the new social media some are not. Some live in areas where they have no connections (wifi) service, some have no cell phone, not all of us live in large cities where there is a wifi on every corner or have no day to day need for laptops or smart phones. Some of us live in cell phone dead zones or drive through areas that are cell phone dead zones on the way out to Bonneville.
As a result of this rain out, I bit the bullet and bought a small android tablet the other day, which will have digital connection ability plus normal wifi connectivity. I am still figuring out how to set things like email up and all those little details but will have it in the future.
I will be wired when I go out to Bonneville now, but in the past when I took a laptop out there, and tried to connect out on the salt flats and in town and the coverage sucked so bad I quit even trying. It was completely useless for web access. I never could get a good enough connection to do anything useful.
I also consider Wendover to be a high risk location for wifi connections so in recent years although I had a lap top with me, I had wifi disabled so it would not even try to connect to any available wifi systems.
I was also not willing to buy a new lap top just for that single purpose until the technology matured a bit more. All I needed from a lap top was the ability to look at my photographs.
I have 3 desk top computers at home and at work I sit in front of a desk top computer all day, I had no other use for a new lap top since I am surrounded by computers all day.
It has improved a lot in the 8 years I have been regularly going out to Bonneville, but the technology still has holes and different groups are at different points in the learning curve to get full connectivity 24/7.
A phone number with a recorded status message would certainly be useful for those who do not have computer/tablet/or smart phone connectivity to FB and twitter or landracing.com. That could be used even from a pay phone from some location that has no cell service.