In Wake of Connecticut School Shooting, How Does the CodeRed Alert System Work?

In the wake of a shocking shooting at a Newtown, CT, elementary school on Friday, Dec. 14, officials are trying to reunite parents with their children. They had help from a "reverse 911" call, which automatically went out to parents of the public school students to notify them about the shooting.

Hundreds of communities around the country have signed up with companies that provide such services. Olivette is the latest in the St. Louis area to approve a contract for the reverse 911 service. The city OK'ed its contract with Emergency Communications Network, which offers a service called CodeRed.

In Town and Country, officials considered signing on with the CodeRed system several years ago. City Police Capt. Gary Hoelzer said "we do use CodeRed for missing persons who are at risk." The cost of a contract at the time it was being considered, in 2009, was $10,000, Hoelzer said. Manchester does not use the CodeRed service.

Eureka, Maplewood, Brentwood, Arnold and Jefferson County are among the communities in the St. Louis area already subscribing to the service.

The so-called "reverse 911" service provides automated emergency weather alerts sent to residents by text, phone or email, as well as alerts from city officials about gas leaks, crime sprees, power outages and missing people.

How CodeRed Works

Services like CodeRed are called "reverse 911" because they allow an agency to automatically call people in the 911 database in their community. Once contracted, CodeRed has access to the database, so any residents listed there are automatically signed up for voice alerts. Residents who are not listed in the database or don’t have a landline, or those who want to register for text or email alerts, have to proactively sign up.

The service, which allows users to choose how and when they want to be notified of emergencies, costs communities between $6,000 to $10,000 a year—and that’s a great deal for some.

How It’s Worked in Other Communities

In some places it’s billed as a money saver: The city of Green River, WY is considering switching to CodeRed because its current emergency notification system hadn’t been operational for two months. The cost to keep the old system running was $160,000, while a contract with CodeRed would cost $7,010 a year—with a promise to drop to $5,916 a year if neighboring towns also adopted the system, according to the Green River Star.

But the storm messaging system hasn’t been successful everywhere, and points to possible problems with leaving life and death decisions in the hands of government contractors.

When the Leap Day tornado hit Branson, MO, in February 2012, the majority of the 900 people who had signed up for alerts never got them, KSPR reported. CodeRed blamed the mishap on the city of Branson, saying it failed to renew its contract on time. CodeRed told the city it would take about 30 days for the system to start working again.The tornado struck on the 31st day. This week, Branson city officials announced their decision to switch to Everbridge, a competitor of CodeRed.

The same day news broke of Branson’s cancellation of CodeRed, the city of Olivette, MO approved a three-year contract with the company, Olivette Patch reported. The council voted unanimously this week to approve a contract that would cost $7,635 in the first year and $9,260 the following two years.

Other Patch towns, including , and , also have contracts with CodeRed.

CodeRed is owned by Emergency Communications Network, an Ormond Beach, FL-based company that was founded in 1999. In the past six weeks, Emergency Communications Network has secured at least six contracts, ranging from $7,000 a year to $53,000 a year, with government agencies.