CodeRED alert system proves useful

As we’re seeing around California, fires can spark at a moment’s notice, devouring homes and neighborhoods. If close to home, Santa Cruz’ CodeRED alert system can be used to make sure you know how to find safety.

“(It is) a much more organized system. Before this we had, pretty much, chaos. People not knowing where to go and not knowing what to do,” Anthony Cefaloni, with the Central Fire Protection District of Santa Cruz County, said.

CodeRED is used by law enforcement and other official agencies. When needed, they write a request to the 911 dispatch center, with the description and location. These dispatchers then send it out to the people closest. Cefaloni says they used it in last year’s storms and the Big Basin Fire of 2014.

“Typically, if it is an evacuation, it would be what’s going on. What area is evacuated, routes to get out, and where to go,” he said.

For the CodeRED system, landlines are automatically connected. For cellphones, you need to register online or download the phone app.

Once registered, you get alerts if you’re in a highly pinpointed location where an event is happening. This is used to clear up 911 lines and make sure the people directly affected know it is going on near them. The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office says it helped during a recent search for an armed burglary suspect.

“We sent them a message saying ‘shelter in place, we’re looking for this person.’ It was one
of the neighbors who actually heard this 911 call and ended up confronting (the suspect) in the yard,” Sergeant Brian Cleveland, with the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office, said.

Also assisting in the search for a missing 12-year-old girl.

“We had neighbors get that page and actually help us in searching for this girl. She was found relatively quickly,” Cleveland said.

From when the request is made, to when an alert is sent out, officials say it takes as quickly as five to seven minutes.