Sheriff's New Reverse 911 System Provides Better Technology and Costs Less

The Plymouth County Sheriff's Department has been using a reverse 911 system since 2004 to notify residents of everything from severe weather, missing children, boil water warnings, mosquito warnings,and police activity.

But the system, called the Plymouth Bristol Emergency Alert System, was run using a program called The Communicator, which has its limits. It relied on real-time telephone lines meaning if the phone was busy, it would hang up. It relied on telephone switch system. The new system, provided by a company called CodeRED, is web-based and can handle a much larger number of phone numbers and messages.

Since 2004, the system has been used 232 times, and the usage has increased year over year. In 2008, the system was activated 47 times, in 2009 60 times, and in 2010 80 times according to the department's records.

Another issue is the cost, according to Sara Lavoie, the Deputy Director Public Information of the Plymouth County Sheriff's Department.

The Communicator was expensive to operate. In 2010, the system cost the Sheriff's department, which is funded by the state Legislature, cost $125,000 due to overages, Lavoie said.

"The Sheriff’s Department secured $100,000 to operate CodeRED this fiscal year (from the state budget). CodeRED offers a more effective pricing structure and plan to help us budget our plan minutes," she said.

Wednesday, the system will be tested in order to update or ‘cleanse’ the phone numbers in CodeRED’s database for Plymouth and Bristol Counties.

"All telephone numbers on file will be called and at this time no other test are planned. CodeRED is looking to remove the out of service numbers and the Sheriff hopes if folks don’t receive a call this week, it will signal residents to register their numbers with CodeRED online," Lavoie said.

How it works

The system works as a "reverse 911." In case of an emergency, a trained deputy records a message and enters it into the system, setting the incident location at the same time. Both The Communicator and CodeRED are based on geography. A resident's proximity to an incident determines whether or not he will receive a call. For example, Plymouth residents will receive notification of coastal flooding happening near Plymouth Beach, but the call radius could be wider for a major blizzard or for a missing child.  

"The system is used most frequently on a local level, however county-wide calls are made as well," Lavoie said. "When a local community is faced with an incident it believes warrants wide-spread or neighborhood notification, designated officials in the town (often police chief/fire chief/town administrator) call our office to request use of the system. The town is required to supply a script and designate the call dissemination area. We have a handful of trained CodeRED operators able to send calls 24/7, 365. These employees have other responsibilities along with the CodeRED function.

Register your cellphone

While all land lines in Plymouth County are registered in the system, cell phone numbers are not. Which means that people who only have cell phones may not receive important messages. However, this can be easily remedied by registering cell phone numbers. If you've registered a cell phone number prior to August, 2011, you will need to re-register with the new system.

Hingham residents may register their numbers online by going to the Sheriff Department's website www.pcsdma.org and clicking on CodeRED. The homepage link will take you to a more in-depth page describing which numbers should be registered and how to register. It takes about three minutes to register.

More information can be found on the Plymouth County Sheriff's department website at http://pcsdma.org/CodeRED.asp.

To sign up your home or cell phone number for this service, please visit the sign-up form or you can always visit our home page at www.hingham-ma.gov and click on the CodeRED logo.