CodeRED System Fully Funded

In the next few weeks, you will receive a phone call on your land line or cell phone, a text message or an email as a test of the new emergency alert system being installed in town.

Marblehead is joining thousands of other cities and towns in installing a Reverse 911 system for town departments, including public health, police, fire, water and sewer and municipal lighting.

The Water and Sewer Commission has partnered with the Municipal Light Commission, the two town boards that have their own independent revenue streams, in agreeing to pay the $12,600 it will cost to install the Reverse 911 emergency notification system in town.

The town chose CodeRED, a division of Emergency Communications Network of Ormond Beach, Fla., to provide the Reverse 911 call system. The company, which has calling centers in several locations, delivers customized recorded messages at high speeds directly to thousands of homes and businesses.

"I was pretty impressed with what it (the system) can do," Robert Jolly, the municipal light department's general manager, said last month.  

The CodeRED system was not the Reverse 911 system that failed to function in the Denver and Boulder, CO, wildfires this week. That system failed for two hours to notify residents of the danger of the fires.

David Digiacomo, a spokesman for CodeRED, said his company "takes pride in a decade of providing the service and never having had a failure." He said the company has never had a cancellation because the system did not work. It owns its own computer infrastructure, which allows it to respond to any issue with its own staff, rather than having to turn to another company to solve a problem.

CodeRED is installed in thousands of communities from Alaska to Key West, Fla., he said.

He cautioned that the CodeRED calling system is only one tool the town can use to alert residents of issues. "But this is a great way to get the word out," Digiacomo said.

Once the system is installed, the town will ask all residents to go to a web site and register all the phones and email addresses where they want to be alerted, he said.

The town could have opted for a system that cost less initially, but the $12,600 price includes unlimited calling. The cheapest price was $9,500 and a mid-priced system was $11,000, all offered by the same company. But these prices did not include an unlimited number of calls.

The system will compile a database of all phone numbers for town residents. Residents can ask that they be notified on their cell phones, by text message or by email. They may also ask not to be notified of an emergency.

The system will be available for all town departments, but will be tightly held, Jolly said. The primary departments expected to use the system are those that provide essential services, including public health, police, fire, water and municipal lighting. He said that his department might use the system to alert residents when there is a power outage and tell them how long it will take to restore power.

The system will not be used to make routine announcements, Jolly said. He expects a committee of town officials will be created to supervise the system, although most department heads will be authorized to initiate an alert.

The Code Red system combines mapping and database technologies to alert residents in targeted geographic areas. The system can also notify off-duty personnel and neighborhood watch members to mobilize them for emergency responses.