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Code Red a key asset

• Code Red is valuable for county residents who aren't near warning sirens when severe weather occurs.

J.D. Sumner

ALBANY — Emergency Management Agency officials say they’re pleased with the public response to the free enrollment of their emergency notification system, but say that many have inadvertently forgotten to sign up for the free severe weather alerts.

The Dougherty EMA is currently registering Dougherty County residents into their Code Red emergency notification alert system, Deputy EMA Director Jim Vaught said.

The system allows emergency officials to notify registered participants when an emergency or hazard occurs in their area, Vaught said.

Vaught said his department is getting a good response from the public, but he said he feels that many of those who have already registered may have inadvertently opted out of a newly-added upgrade to the system that alerts users when severe weather is in the area.

“The majority of people that we have called who chose to opt out of that part of the system didn’t really know that they had,” Vaught said. “It was just a mistake because they didn’t see that box at the bottom of the page.”

The “box” Vaught is referring to is on the Web page on which users register but is in a different area than the other question boxes.

EMA Director and Fire Chief James Carswell said the weather component is an add-on to the system that he believes is the more likely part to get used.

“In this part of the state we get bad weather,” Carswell said. “So 90 percent of the time, when we use this system it will probably be because of bad weather.”

Those who choose to be notified of severe weather will receive an automatic phone call from the National Weather Service once a tornado, thunderstorm or flood warning is determined to be imminent for their specific area of the county.

“This won’t notify the entire county if there is, say, a tornado warning,” Vaught said. “It will specifically call those registered people who live within the warning’s polygon that is drawn by the weather service.”

Basically, it means that if weather officials determine on radar that a tornado has been spotted near Acree, residents of that specific area will receive a phone call to the numbers they registered when they signed up for the program, while the rest of the county won’t be notified.

“We feel that it will compliment the other emergency warning systems, like the sirens, well,” Carswell said. “We still stand behind those and advocate people getting weather radios and stuff like that, but this is a free service that we feel is invaluable, especially to those people who live out in the county away from our warning sirens.”

Carswell and Vaught also pointed to the system’s flexibility as a multi-use platform for spreading information. Both said the system could be used to notify a specific neighborhood if a child or Alzheimer’s patient is missing or if there is a toxic spill.

The system costs around $35,000 for an annual subscription and is being paid for through the general fund of the Dougherty County Commission.

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