Bath County Can Notify Residents Of Emergencies By Telephone Via The Code Red System

Warm Springs, VA – It’s been almost a year since the Code Red emergency alert system was used for the first time in Bath County. When Beacher Hackney shot two co-workers at The Homestead last March, Bath authorities sent out an emergency message to Bath County residents via Code Red. In order to receive a call during an emergency, you must be registered with the Code Red system.

Code Red is a separate system from 911. They don’t share information, so even though your phone number and address are listed in 911, they may not be in Code Red. 911 is how you notify authorities that you have an emergency – Code Red is how authorities notify you that there’s an emergency.

Code Red can be used to notify all residents county wide in Bath . It can also notify specific residents if an emergency affects only a certain area. So it’s important to be sure your address is correct in Code Red. You can also register an additional phone number along with your home number.

Code Red went online in Bath County in December 2008. It can dial 60,000 phone numbers per hour. When a phone is answered Code Red plays the pre-recorded emergency message. If an answering machine picks up, the emergency message is left on the machine. If there’s no answer at a phone number, Code Red will continue to call that number up to three times.

For more information, or to register or update your information in Code Red, call 839-7287 or visit bathcountyva.org and click on Code Red.