The City of Howe and other cities in Grayson County instituted the CodeRED Emergency Notification System – an ultra high-speed telephone communication service for emergency notifications. This system allows the city to telephone all or targeted areas of the County in case of an emergency situation that requires immediate action (such as a boil-water notice, missing child or evacuation notices). The system is capable of dialing 60,000 phone numbers per hour. It then delivers a pre-recorded message describing the situations to a live person or an answering machine in the affected area possibly including instructions requiring action on the part of the recipient. Once the situation is remedied, another call will be placed to the area signaling that the issue has been addressed and that normal activities can be resumed.
This system is only used for emergency situations only. Examples of times when the CodeRED system could be utilized: drinking water contamination, utility outage, evacuation notice & route, missing person, fires or floods, bomb threat, hostage situation, chemical spill or gas leak, and other emergency incidents where rapid and accurate notification is essential for life safety.
Citizens can register at http://www.co.grayson.tx.us/default.aspx?name=oem.cred to have the city communicate emergency situations to them directly.
The city voted last night to be able to use unlimited messages to be able to update citizens on progress after the first emergency message had been sent out. (Full story in Monday’s Howe Enterprise).