Thu, Apr 27 2006 

Residents step closer to receiving emergency notifications on phones

By Howard Greninger
The Tribune-Star

Vigo County residents are one step closer to receiving notification of emergencies on their home or cellular telephones. Sheriff Jon Marvel on Wednesday asked the County Council to consider using $30,000 out of a contractual budget for telephone lines from the county’s E911 fund to pay for the first year of “CodeRED,” an emergency telephone calling system that can target geographic areas in the county, sending customized pre-recorded emergency messages to homes and businesses.

CodeRED is a subscription service of Florida-based Emergency Communications Network Inc.

The county E911 fund has $193,000, Marvel said. A county E911 committee has reviewed several companies and last month voted to recommend CodeRED, he said.

The service would cost $15,000 annually in the second year and each year afterward, Marvel told the County Council. The county would receive 100,000 minutes annually that can be used to send messages.

Council President Robert Hellmann, D-at large, asked how many calls could be made per minute to residents in the county.

Marvel said the system itself can make up to 60,000 calls an hour. However, the sheriff said a telephone provider could not provide an exact number of calls that could be handled per minute in Vigo County.

“This can be used to alert certain areas for a tornado or weather problem, or if a certain part of Terre Haute is having a problem with break-ins or vandalism, we can target specific areas in the county and city,” Marvel said.

Councilman Tim Curley, D-1st, asked who determines when the system is activated.

“There are no turf problems. We have not worked that out; we don’t have a protocol yet,” Marvel said.

Terre Haute Police Chief George Ralston told the council the system will “enlist the help of the community in solving crimes. We can issue an alert to look for a suspicious person in a neighborhood or a possible abductor. This can bridge the gap between law enforcement and the community … to get more eyes and ears out there,” Ralston said.

“I think this is a proactive step and not reactive step,” Ralston said.

The system will call landline phones, but also have a Web site to allow citizens to include cellular telephone numbers once activated, Marvel said.

“We will do a lot of advertising about that as we get going,” the sheriff said.

Councilman Darrick Scott, D-2nd, is a member of the county’s E911 advisory board. “This is just one more tool to protect our citizens. It is the first step of getting information out in an emergency,” Scott said.

“This, however, is not just a weather tool or our weather fix. It is one element in a continuing effort to make it better. This will help on Amber Alerts, thefts, crimes in certain areas or HazMat spills. It can be used for water boil orders, or used for road closures or if a bridge is out. We can target areas, like only 535 [telephone] prefixes or 235 prefixes,” Scott said.

Marvel said he hopes to have more budget savings in the county E911 budget. Hellmann asked him to prepare a written request for the funds for the council’s approval in May and asked Marvel to show the council where other budget savings measures can be done in the E911 budget.

In other business, the County Council gave final approval to real property and personal property tax abatements to Staples Inc. for an expansion in the Vigo County Industrial Park.

The company is expanding its distribution center with a 273,000-square-foot addition. The company plans to add 80 jobs, with an annual payroll of more than $1.94 million.

The company will retain 308 jobs, with an annual payroll of more than $9.6 million.

Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com.