11/16/06

City of Punta Gorda gears up for CodeRED

PUNTA GORDA -- Punta Gorda has implemented a high-speed telephone emergency notification service for residents, appropriately named CodeRED.

CodeRED gives city officials the ability to deliver prerecorded emergency telephone messages to targeted areas of the city at a rate of up to 60,000 calls per hour.

The city recently contracted with Emergency Communications Network in Ormond Beach, Fla. The service is free to the city's residents.

The calls can be issued in instances including hurricanes or natural disasters, missing children or endangered adults, sex offender or predator alerts, chemical spills, gas leaks or waterline breaks.

Police Chief Chuck Rinehart suggests no one should assume their phone number is already in the system. All businesses and those with unlisted or new phone numbers or cell phones should register by visiting the city's Web site at www.ci.punta-gorda.fl.us, or those without Internet access can pick up a form at the Public Safety Building at 1410 Tamiami Trail.

"If your phone number is not in the database, you will not be called," Rinehart said in a statement Tuesday.

Rinehart explained that the CodeRED system is a geographic-based notification system, which means street addresses are needed to select which numbers will be called.

"The system works fine for cell phones, too, but we have to have a street address," he said.

For more information, Punta Gorda residents can call the Punta Gorda Police Department at 941-575-5513.

The city of North Port has been using CodeRED since July, according to city spokesman Stan Frank.

"It does everything CodeRED says it can do," Frank said Wednesday.

North Port used the system in September to alert residents that 6-year-old Coralrose Fullwood was missing. A couple of hours later, a second call went out to inform the residents that the child had been found dead. No arrest has been made in the case.

In October, the service was utilized again when there was a water-main break.

"We alerted those living in the area to boil their water," Frank said.

The only glitch North Port has experienced, said Frank, was discovering that so many calls at once congested the Verizon phone lines.

"Now we send out calls in batches of about 250 numbers at a time," he said. "It's a little slower now but still very effective. This technology can't be beat. If you were to set up a phone tree, you couldn't accomplish what CodeRED can. This is more efficient by far."

Jeff Reese, manager of the geographic information system division under the Information Technology department for Charlotte County, said the county is currently looking into acquiring a call-down system as well.

"It probably won't be the same program," he said. "CodeRED only takes care of a portion of what we really need due to the amount of the county's departments."

Reese said the county will look for an interactive voice-response program along with a mass notification system. The county has drawn up a request for proposal, and Reese said the county will begin searching for vendors within the month. Once one is found, the contract will go up to the Charlotte County Commission for approval.

"We are searching for an enterprising solution that will tie into the other programs we already have in place," Reese said.

You can e-mail Alyssa Schnugg at schnugg@sun-herald.com.

By ALYSSA SCHNUGG

Staff Writer