Council Approves Emergency System

Not quite 24 hours before the tornado touched down in Canton last week, the Canton City Council approved an agreement with the East Texas Council of Governments (COG) for CodeRED.

The CodeRED rapid emergency communication service, which will be funded the first year by the COG, is a reverse 9-1-1 message system.

Canton Fire Chief Charles Bazhaw explained that a database is entered into software and in the event of an emergency, a password is entered by two different people who can activate a prerecorded message which is sent out to subscribers.

He said home phones and cell phone numbers are entered into the database and in the event of an emergency, the database is activated and everyone’s telephone is called and given notification of the emergency.

Bazhaw said the East Texas COG purchased the program, which would be used in addition to the civil defense sirens, in the city of Canton.

The contract, signed by the city, will be good for a year and the grant would be made available next year, but there may be a matching portion of up to $1,500 Bazhaw explained.

He went on to say the CodeRED would not replace use of the civil defense sirens, which he explained "are to warn you if you are outdoors."

"That is where the Code Red would come into play because it notifies you by phone," he said.

Bazhaw said each city gets 18,750 free minutes and any minutes used over that is .33 per minute.

The council was in agreement that the system would be worthwhile for the city. Bazhaw said he is uncertain at this time when the system will be activated, but that it will be used for emergency situations only, such as extreme severe weather alerts, Amber Alerts and other major emergencies.