CodeRED system hastens recovery of 14-year-old girl
The new message delivery system is far more efficient than the old one and operates at a fraction of the cost.
By DUANE BOURNE, Times Staff Writer
Published February 11, 2004
BROOKSVILLE - The 14-year-old girl vanished from a Bible study group last Wednesday. The only thing left behind was the church's cordless telephone she used to make a call and a backpack filled with her belongings.
Racing against time to find a girl they thought was abducted, Hernando County investigators went to CodeRED, a new message delivery system that alerted residents in the area of the girl's disappearance.
The system got results. The girl was found early Thursday morning.
Had it not been for the automated system, which funnels messages to residents in a matter of minutes, the case of the girl who drove off with a registered sexual offender could have ended as tragically as the case of 11-year-old Carlie Brucia, Sheriff Richard Nugent said on Monday.
"Had it not been for CodeRED, I am convinced that we would not have put together a case so quickly and locate the vehicle," Nugent said during a press conference unveiling the system.
The state-of-the-art, patented CodeRED technology makes it possible for users to contact more people, faster than the previous generation of hardware-based systems has ever been able to achieve.
“Simply put, this system gives us the flexibility to reach so many people, in a short window of time. And during a chaotic event, like a hurricane, we don’t have time to wait for the system to cycle through 70,000 or 80,000 calls over a couple-of-days period – with CodeRED it takes us 75-90 minutes to reach everyone,”
–Neal Evangelista, Public Information Officer, city of Boca Raton, Florida.
CodeRED clients don’t have to tie up significant internal resources in order to deploy it. And the system works around local electric and telephone limitations that would otherwise affect their ability to deliver their messages.
“The CodeRED system really allows us to extend our staff to focus on other tasks because it runs so effortlessly and requires less oversight. We can multi-task and still accomplish our needs in a timely manner. And even when the main power grids failed around us during Charley and Frances, we were able to communicate with our constituency. Mass emergency communications are now better managed via the Internet, and the CodeRED system is on the cutting edge of that change.”
– Jeff McAbee, Orange County, Florida Sheriff’s Department.
The CodeRED system is supported by knowledgeable and technologically advanced support teams. With the ability to offer multiple back up components, and easy-to-understand training elements, maintenance of the system is easy.
“ECN does anything and everything we ask for and they are without a doubt the most supportive and helpful vendor we have ever worked with. They are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and when you’re going through even the most manageable communications event, having that backup support is immeasurable. When it’s a potential catastrophe, you know that extra support will make a huge difference and ultimately save lives”
– Rick Baker, Hernando County, Florida Sheriff’s Office
And the last piece of good news is that because the price of CodeRED is based on actual and documented usage -- not for hardware, phone lines and other miscellaneous service and maintenance charges – and our costs may be eligible for FEMA reimbursement.
“It’s the most cost-efficient decision we have made as a city. We are able to reach the masses, quickly, and the cost to do so is very manageable. We could not be more pleased with the results of the system, or with what it has meant to our bottomline.”
– Chuck Taylor, Emergency Manager, City of West Palm Beach, Florida
1/31/02 - 2:36pm - Fort Myers Beach Florida uses CodeRED to proactively notify citizens of an upcoming water outage in their area. Below is the message:
“This is emergency notification message is being brought to you by the Fort Myers Beach Town Hall and Water utility. Because of extensive work that needs to be done to the water lines leading to the new Fire District Administration building on Vosrhis Street water service will be interrupted from about midnight tonight until about 4 am Friday morning. Residents on Vosrhis Street may experience a longer service outage period. We hope to have the work completed and service restored in a time frame that will cause the least amount of inconvenience possible. If you need further information please call Beach Water tomorrow at 463-9914. Thank you for your patience in the manner.”
The Fort Myers Beach utility department, Beach Water, did not receive one phone call from a customer confused as to why their water was temporarily out of service. According to Deputy Town manager John Gucciardo CodeRED was 100% effective in proactively notifying the affected areas.
Memo from Standing Joint Headquarters - Homeland Security
-----Original Message-----
From: Hunt, Francis CAPT HLSIM02
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2003 7:09 PM
To: 'dcd@coderedweb.com'
Subject: RE: ECN CodeRED Testing follow up
CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
Mr. DiGiacomo,
CodeRED was extremely effective for our purposes, which was to conduct a test
recall of about half of the command. The only difficulty we had was with two
numbers that were incorrectly entered into our listing. The personnel who
tried the web interface for editing those numbers were very positive about
it's utility and ease of use.
If it helps you to refer people to me who would like to discuss our experience,
feel free to do so via e-mail or telephone, or to forward my comments to them.
A decision in August to stand up a Standing Joint Force HQ at Peterson AFB to
support NORTHCOM in lieu of this command during FY-04 has kept me from executing
a service agreement with CodeRED. However, it is my intent to forward your
e-mail to the appropriate person(s) at USNORTHCOM, as soon as I determine who
that is.
Thanks also for the following clippings. It's also obvious that your system
could be very effective in putting out a message about a suspected terrorist
given's its GIS tie-in capabilities. After Isabel passed by, I noticed that
the only communications we had were the plain old desk and wall set telephones.
I wish we had CodeRED for the command at that time. I would also imagine
that such a service would have been of great value to people in the northeast
during the blackout this past Summer, was CodeRED in use up that way?
Best regards,
Frank Hunt Jr., CAPT USNR
Acting Chief Information Officer,
Standing Joint Force Headquarters - Homeland Security
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