The Clinton County Emergency Management, in conjunction with the county, city and office of Homeland Security, have signed up with CodeRED, and Emergency Communications Network, which provides high speed notification solutions for the CodeRED Weather Warning System.

The CodeRED system will allow local officials the ability to quickly deliver phone and text messages–sometimes a process referred to as “Emergency Notification System”–to residents in targeted areas or the entire county.

The no-charge service allows message recipients to easily identify calls coming through the system. Message recipient’s Caller ID will read Emergency Communications Network or 866-419-5000 for CodeRED calls. For CodeRED Weather Warning calls, either Emergency Communications Network or the number 800-566-9780 will appear on the Caller ID.

CodeRED Weather Warning is an opt-in only weather warning product that taps into the National Weather Service’s Storm Based Warnings.

CodeRED Weather warning automatically alerts affected citizens to the path of severe weather just moments after a warning has been issued. Service weather notification such as forced evacuation of an area can be delivered automatically to all land-line telephones in an affected area without regard to prior registration. However, cell phone users, and those wishing to receive national weather service warnings for the area, must register their phone with the CodeRED System.

Clinton County Director of Emergency Services Lonnie Scott said the Emergency Notification System alert system came about by virtue of Clinton being in a designated area near Wolf Creek Dam, when problems with the dam’s structure arose causing the remote possibility of a breach in the dam.

Homeland Security put emergency measures in place in Russell and surrounding counties of Wolf Creek Dam and the CodeRED system was chosen from among four counties in that affected area, including Clinton, Cumberland, Monroe and Russell.

The system is available to those counties through a two-year grant from Homeland Security and each individual county will have the option of renewing the warning alert system, at a cost, after the original grant period expires in mid-2014. “It will be each individual county’s option of keeping it in place,” said Scott.

Scott noted the weather alert service was already in place and other warning options should be online in a couple of months, probably by late October. Then the system can be used to send critical communications, ranging from evacuation notices to missing children (or AMBER) alerts, as well as the severe weather notifications.

The weather warnings are online for land-line users only and when the system is in full operation, cell phone users can sign-up for the service free via the internet by registering at http://R911SignUp.com.

The emergency services director noted it would take a couple of months for equipment to be put online and 911 operators to be trained, prior to making all the emergency alert criteria available to all residents in the city and county.

Formerly, only the office of Homeland Security could trigger a system of any disaster alerts and with the new CodeRED system, warnings can be triggered by local officials in the four-county area, Scott said.

Triggering the system can notify emergency agencies such as fire, police or anyone on the contact list, which will be added in the weeks ahead.

Scott noted that emergency service personnel and other officials in the four counties aforementioned had been presented options from various warning alert system companies and had graded each proposal prior to selecting CodeRED as their provider.

Scott stressed that currently, only weather warnings will be issued to residents with land-line phones, but after the system is fully in place, cell phone users will then be able to register their phones and computers to receive the emergency warnings.