April 6, 2010
Emergency Services goes 'Code Red'
By Vanessa Overholser - Staff Writer CNHI
April 6, 2010 — The Rowan County Fiscal Court has opted to try a new emergency notification system. Emergency officials were present at the March meeting to make a presentation on the new system and how it would help the county during emergency situations.
The cost to purchase the system is $19,376 per year.
“The system is called Code Red which is a name of company out of Florida,” said Emergency Management Director for Morehead and Rowan County Ronnie Day. “They have an office in Louisville.
It is an emergency communications network. It is a web-based program. We will be able to dial anyone in the county within 25 minutes.
“When you pay the price for this system it never will go up,” Day said. “We will have five passwords to access the system to contact people in emergencies.”
He said the system is easy to operate and is very accessible.
“As long as you have Internet and a phone, you can access into this system," Day said. “You can highlight the map of the area you want to call to notify people of an emergency. It generates a report and it will contact people immediately. It will tell us whether it talked to a person or an answering machine. There’s an automated weather service system on the website which is linked to the NOAA (National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration) Service. There are three weather warnings available. They are the
tornado flash flood and severe thunderstorm warnings.”
Residents in the county can access the site as well, he said.
“People will have to go on the website and they will be able to pull up information for automated weather warning network,” he said. “You can leave your web address, phone numbers and email address. It will do a text message, email, house phone, business phone and cell phone when an emergency occurs.”
Emergency officials hope to have the system up and running soon, he said.
“We hope to have it up in about three weeks,” Day said.
The new system will be a great asset to the community, he added.
“We don’t have a system right now,“ Day said. “All we have is a cable override system. This way it will be broadcast everywhere. We have worked on this for the past two years so we can present this to the fiscal court. The fiscal court is actually paying for this.”
This has been one of the greatest things that the county has done, he said.
“Before this was considered a luxury and now it is a necessity,“ Day said. “This is the most proactive things I’ve seen the fiscal court do. This will touch everyone in Rowan County. This is the greatest thing in Rowan County since sliced bread. A lot of times when the county has to do things it does not affect everyone in the county but this does.”
It makes emergency crews job a lot easier, he said.
“We will be able to contact everyone in the county when we have several weather warnings,” he said. “We can notify people not only for weather conditions but for accidents, road closures and water maid breaks. There’s many things we can do with it.”
Rowan County Judge-executive Jim Nickell said he is pleased that the court is trying the system.
“We voted to try it for a year to see how it goes,“ Nickell said. “I think it is a very good program. Like I told the court, if it saves one life the cost will be worth it.”
It is a very interesting system for notifying folks ahead of time before storms occur, Nickell said.
“There’s all kinds of things you can do with the system,” Nickell said. “I am very excited about trying this system. We are the fifth county in the state to try it.”
“The thing you can do with this you can’t do with the reverse 911 system,” he said. “Plus it’s a lot quicker. You can contact folks in a quicker manner. They notify people on their cell phones, landline phones and text messages. It goes farther than just notifying people. What brought to my attention the fact you can notify all or part of the county when an emergency exists.”
The fiscal court is going to make contact with the city and the utility plant board, Nickell added.
“If we can split the cost, it will not be so hard on anybody,” Nickell said. “It will protect the citizens of this county than what we have now.”
There will be a ribbon cutting for the system in the City Hall when the county gets the system up and running, Day added.