On Feb. 1, the city of Nevada launched CodeRED, a high-speed telephone emergency notification system. The city has contracted with Emergency Communications Network, Inc., who currently contracts its CodeRED services with 21 counties and four cities in Iowa.
How it works
With the CodeRED system, Nevada City officials can now deliver prerecorded emergency telephone notification messages at a rate of up to 1,000 calls per minute.
"We are always looking for new and innovative ways to serve the community effectively and efficiently," Nevada Police Chief Michael Tupper said. Tupper has been researching these types of systems for the past year. "As technology has evolved, there is a higher expectation to come up with these types of systems to provide timely notification during emergencies."
City Administrator Elizabeth Hansen said that the system would allow city staff to contact targeted areas or the entire city in case of an emergency situation that requires immediate action.
How it works: Authorized staff calls an 800 number, records a message and then the system makes 1,000 calls per minute. The system makes three attempts to connect to any number and delivers the message to a live person or an answering machine. Hansen said that notification can be delivered to a home phone, cellular phone and by text message or e-mail.
The city will use the system for both emergency and nonemergency events. Examples are utility outages, water main breaks, street closings, snow emergency notices, drinking water contaminations, evacuation notices and routes, missing persons, fires and flooding, bomb threats, chemical spills, gas leaks and hostage situations, as well as any other city government information of importance to citizens.
Tupper also noted that CodeRED has mapping capabilities, with any of the above mentioned scenarios. If there was a water main break, staff could select a specific area of town to send the notification to.
"This isn't a priority of just the police department," Tupper said. "This is a city-wide endeavor which will allow us to provide the best possible services."
Prior to CodeRED, Tupper said, if, for example, there had been a hazardous waste spill and the city would have needed to evacuate a certain area of town, city staff would have had to go door to door to notify residents. "We have limited resources and that (going door to door) would take our personnel away from solving a problem."
Tupper said that city staff has completed system training. The administrative policy allows the police chief and fire chief to authorize initiation of the system during emergency situations, and gives the street supervisor and water supervisor authorization during non-emergency situations. Any other information deemed important for citizens to know from other departments must be approved by the city administrator before the system is used.
The program will cost $7,500 per year with no size limitation in the event that Nevada's population would increase. Because the program is starting mid-fiscal year, the city will pay $3,125 for services provided from Feb. 1 - June 30 of this year. The water, street, fire and police departments expended approximately $780 each to start the program.
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If a resident or businesses phone number is not in the database, they will not be called.
"CodeRED system is a geographical-based notification system, which means street addresses are needed to select which phone numbers will receive emergency notification calls in any given situation. The system works fine for cell phones too, but we have to have a street address," Hansen said.
Tupper said they currently have more than 2,000 numbers in the database. He said those numbers were captured from the white pages in the phone book. But, he said, those are only the residents who have published landlines. Also, they were not able to capture any businesses listed in the yellow pages. "Don't assume that we have your data," Tupper said.
Businesses and any residents who have an unlisted phone number, who have changed their phone number or address within the last year or who use a cellular phone as a primary home phone are encouraged to register.
Information loaded into the database is private and will only used for notification purposes. Residents can log on to the city's Web site at www.ci.nevada.ia.us and follow the CodeRED link to a data collection page. Residents without Internet access should call Nevada City Hall at 382-5466 to give their information over the phone.
