Mayors, County Look to Continue CodeRed

— Several mayors and the Washington County judge expressed concern about the low number of residents who have registered for a service that notifies them of threats, such as severe weather or disasters.

At A Glance

Smart 911

Managers of the Washington County Department of Emergency Management reminded mayors to encourage residents to participate in Smart 911. Dispatchers that receive 911 calls from cellphones can only see the cellphone provider, phone number and location of caller within 100 meters.

People can register more information at Smart911.com and include detailed information, such as their name, address, emergency contacts, medical needs and languages spoken.

The information is not public and can only be viewed by dispatchers within 45 minutes of the 911 call.

Source: Staff report

The county and seven small cities this year began using CodeRed, a service that sends phone calls, text messages and email to residents. Farmington, Prairie Grove and Lincoln have used the service for more than a year.

The group of seven small cities, Farmington, Prairie Grove and Lincoln each have separate contracts with the company. Springdale and Fayetteville use different services. Elm Springs has no service.

Emergency managers can send out targeted notifications to residents who have telephone landlines and business lines by using 911 databases, said John Luther, director of the county’s Emergency Management department. Cellphone users must sign up for the service, said Rick Johnson, deputy director.

The county’s overall population is 203,065, according to the 2010 census. Residents living within city limits depend on their leaders to contract for notifications, such as CodeRed or other services.

In April, the county launched the service for about 38,000 rural residents costing about $19,000. More than 2,500 people living outside city limits have registered through the county’s service, Johnson said.

“I have been very pleased with the exception that I want more people to sign up because it doesn’t cost anything,” said Marilyn Edwards, county judge. “It’s a wonderful facility to have available to us, yet we have so many people that won’t sign up.”

Mayors from Elkins, Goshen, Greenland, Johnson, Tontitown, West Fork and Winslow went together to contract the service for $7,875 for about 13,500 residents.

Johnson Mayor Buddy Curry said he appreciated the group’s buying power and is looking for ways to increase registrations. His city’s population is roughly 3,354 residents and about 10 percent have signed up, he said.

Springdale uses Cooper Notifications, a similar mass notification company.

“We struggled with the same issues even though it’s a different provider. It's the same problem in figuring out ways to get folks to sign up,” said Springdale Mayor Doug Sprouse. “We're still trying different things. If anybody finds anything that works well, we’ll be happy to give it a try too.”

Fayetteville uses GovDelivery, a notification service that sends email and text messages but not phone calls. The email notify registered residents of severe weather, and other announcements, such as news releases, job openings and calendar events, according to its website.

Prairie Grove Mayor Sonny Hudson said his staff uses the service for other reasons in addition to incoming severe weather events.

His city uses CodeRed to alert residents of changes to trash service during holiday times or snow delays, he said. If a child is lost, they can send out notifications, he said.

“You can pick an area or a certain part of town where there’s a 3-year old walking around,” Hudson said. “You go to the map and pick out the area you want and send out the calls and say hey people walk outside and start looking.”

Luther and Johnson were asked to begin looking at ways to group all small cities in the county to create buying power and lower costs for CodeRed, at Monday’s Washington County Intergovernmental Council meeting.

Johnson said they will include Fayetteville and Springdale in getting price estimates, but it will be up to those individual cities if they want to leave their existing service providers.

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