County considers CodeRED emergency system
by Peter Jakey-Managing Editor
Members of the Presque Isle County Board of Commissioners heard a presentation regarding an early warning notification program called CodeRED.
It’s a new technology to notify residents of emergencies, while freeing up emergency personnel to handle other critical tasks.
Ed Hunt, who is the CodeRED company spokesman in Michigan, explained the different options and shared the success stories of the systems.
“CodeRED is mass communication for your public,” said Hunt, speaking before the board July 9. CodeRED is operated and maintained by Emergency Communications Network.
Using the telephone, county emergency management officials could use CodeRED for emergency notifications and the distribution of information considered to be important.
The sheriff, emergency services coordinator, dispatcher or an officer would map out an area of the county, record a message and CodeRED would get the calls out to the targeted areas.
Hunt gave the example of a male subject with medical needs, who walked away from his family at a county fair. Hunt said 200 people received a message about the individual and he was reunited with his family within 20 minutes.
Hunt said there is a free app(lication) download for cell phone users.
“For all of your influx of summer travelers, they can put the application into their phone, even though they are not in your data base, and you draw a polygon for a lost child, a walk away from an elderly home, a fire,” said Hunt. “I can receive that information because my phone knows my location because of the GPS on my phone.”
Alerts could go out for an evacuation, contaminated water, or a hazardous chemical spill. The system is capable of dialing the entire county within minutes, deliverying a pre-recorded message describing the situation, including instructions on any actions needed to remain safe.
A calling data base is created by extracting information from computerized files and other public record sources; however, not all phone numbers of residents and residential business property owners within the county would be available. Those individuals would have
“It is technology that has saved lives throughout the country,” said Hunt.
Another part of CodeRED is the for weather warnings. “It is an automated system. It is opt in only,” said Hunt. “If you bring CodeRED on, you will advise people to go to the Web site and choose the alerts you want: severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, flash floods and winter storm warnings.
“As soon as the National Weather Service releases a polygon, we start dialing anyone in the data base that has requested to receive that information.”
He said there was an instance last year downstate, there a person working on his vehicle “and was underneath his vehicle fixing his car and got a call from CodeRED,” said Hunt. He walked into his house and turned on the television, and there were no warnings. “Five minutes later, the storms came through and his garage was gone,” said Hun
The CodeRED program would cost $5,888 annually, while the weather warning system would be an additional $3,750.
“Our original costs was $8,000, but because of Grand Traverse County coming on board, we reduced the cost,” he added.
Hunt said the price would be “locked in for life. It works out to be about 72 cents per citizen, per year.” All upgrades are free, he added.
“I don’t know if we are ready you give you an answer this evening,” said county chair Carl Altman. “We can have the finance committee look at this and get more input from the board.”