Podcast: Deputy Police Chief Chuck Walerius on the April 15 CodeRed test (sign up now)

Chuck Walerius, Tracy Davis, Griff Wigleycodered-brochure-sshot Our guest this week was Northfield Deputy Police Chief Chuck Walerius, talking about the new CodeRed emergency notification system for Rice and Steele counties (brochure/FAQ PDF) and the test of the system coming up on April 15.

You can sign up now so that the system alerts you via landline phone, cell phone, text message and email. Just visit either the City of Northfield Police Dept. page or the Emergency info page and click on the CodeRed logo/link. You’ll be sent to a special Rice/Steele page on the CodeRed.com website. (I’m deliberately not linking to it from here in case the URL changes.)


Click play to listen. 30 minutes.

You can also download the MP3 or subscribe to the podcast feed, or subscribe directly with iTunes. Our radio show/podcast, Locally Grown, usually airs Mondays at 6:00 PM and Sundays at 10 AM on KYMN 1080 AM.

17 Comments

  1. Griff Wigley said:

    Nfld News editorial Dec 11, 2009: CodeRED should add weather alerts

    But police officials believe severe weather warnings are best handled by other, more qualified agencies and that warnings are covered by existing resources. We disagree. Anyone who has seen a patrol car weaving its way through neighborhoods with its lights and siren going to warn people to take cover in advance of a tornado knows police are often on the front line of a severe weather event.

    And while the outdoor sirens are effective as long as you are outdoors, not everyone has a weather radio or the TV turned on to know when bad weather is approaching. But everyone has a phone and pays attention when it rings.

    March 23, 2010
  2. John S. Thomas said:

    Also, when the power goes out in a storm, the old phone still works. You cannot have too much communication in an urgent situation.

    I think it should be used for tornadoes, but not for every severe thunderstorm warning… potential loss of life needs to be involved.

    March 23, 2010
  3. Anne Sawyer said:

    Hmmm… Do you think they’ve noticed that their department link on the PDF is incorrect? They’ve got http://www.northfield.mn.us and it’s supposed to be http://www.ci.northfield.mn.us Perhaps one of you who knows them could give the heads-up?? Just a thought! : )

    March 24, 2010
  4. Griff Wigley said:

    Thanks, Anne. I’ll alert Deputy Chief Walerius.

    March 24, 2010
  5. Griff Wigley said:

    John,

    Walerius indicated that the ‘weather’ module for CodeRed would be an additional expense, though he didn’t say how much.

    I think Northfield’s portion of the cost to buy CodeRed amounted to $3000 last year. I assume that was a one-time expense.

    March 24, 2010
  6. Deputy Chief Walerius said:

    Thanks Griff and Anne! Actually, people can just click on the CodeRED logo on the website and it will take them to the registration page. They do not have to go through the brochure; however if they do, it has now been fixed. Thanks again for letting us know.

    Chuck

    March 25, 2010
  7. Griff Wigley said:

    Chuck, I think you’ve misunderstood Anne and me. The URL in the PDF brochure A) isn’t clickable and B) doesn’t point people to the CodeRed registration page. It rightfully points them to the Police Dept page and it was THAT URL that was incorrect.

    So our concern was that if you had that brochure printed, people would be typing in the incorrect URL to get to the police dept page.

    I see the new PDF is up. But tell the city webmaster that it’s not helpful to create a new file with a new name because now it forces everyone who’s already linked to the old URL (like me!) to go back an edit our post and link to the URL. Much better if they’d replaced the old PDF with the new PDF, same file name/same URL.

    Both of these are still lit:

    http://www.ci.northfield.mn.us/assets/c/Code-Red.pdf
    http://www.ci.northfield.mn.us/assets/c/CodeRed.pdf

    March 25, 2010
  8. Griff Wigley said:

    Two weeks till CodeRed d-day: have y’all signed up?

    April 2, 2010
  9. Griff Wigley said:

    Chuck,

    I see in last week’s Friday Memo that City Administrator Joel Walinksi wrote:

    As we move into the summer storm season this program is another communication piece for officials to provide timely updates to citizens.

    Did something change or is Joel mistaken about weather alerts?

    April 7, 2010
  10. Griff Wigley said:

    Tomorrow is CodeRed test day, tornado drill day at the schools, and tax day.

    April 14, 2010
  11. Tracy Davis said:

    I just got my Code Red notice via email. No sign of phone or SMS notice as yet.

    April 15, 2010
  12. Tracy Davis said:

    I do wish it wasn’t SHOUTING AT ME.

    April 15, 2010
  13. John S. Thomas said:

    Mine just came over my cell phone as a pre-recorded message. No SMS as of yet.

    April 15, 2010
  14. Tracy Davis said:

    I received voicemail on my cell phone, but it didn’t leave one on my home phone – just keeps calling back. No SMS for me yet either…

    April 15, 2010
  15. Griff Wigley said:

    Why are they using AOL?

    from riceandsteele911@aol.com
    date Thu, Apr 15, 2010 at 10:00 AM
    subject Alert message

    4/15/2010 11:00:18 AM – •       THE PUBLIC SAFETY AGENCIES FROM WITHIN RICE AND STEELE COUNTY ARE EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE THE ACQUISITION OF A PUBLIC SAFETY SYSTEM WHICH WILL NOTIFY YOU OF EMERGENCY INCIDENTS THAT MAY INVOLVE THE SAFETY OF YOUR FAMILY AND NEIGHBORHOOD, SUCH AS A MISSING CHILD, HAZARDOUS MATERIAL SPILLS, OR FLOODING, JUST TO NAME A FEW.
    •       THE SYSTEM IS CAPABLE OF NOTIFYING YOUR HOME PHONE, MOBILE PHONE OR EMAIL ADDRESS OF ANY INCIDENTS OCCURING IN THE AREA OF YOUR RESIDENCE THAT COULD AFFECT YOUR SAFETY.
    •       TO ENSURE THAT WE HAVE ALL OF YOUR CORRECT NOTIFICATION INFORMATION, YOU CAN GO TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT WEB SIGHT FOR YOUR COUNTY OR COMMUNITY AND SIGN UP FOR THIS SERVICE.
    •       THE SYSTEM ALLOWS US TO QUICKLY NOTIFY NUMEROUS RESIDENCES SIMULTANEOUSLY WITH PUBLIC SAFETY INFORMATION.
    •       WE ARE CONTACTING ALL PHONE NUMBERS KNOWN TO US WITHIN THE TWO COUNTIES TO NOTIFY THEM OF THE SERVICE.
    •       TO SIGN UP, PLEASE VISIT YOUR COUNTY OR LOCAL COMMUNITIES INTERNET WEB SITE AND CLICK ON CODE RED TO SIGN UP FOR THE SERVICE.
    •       WE ASK THAT YOU TALK WITH ALL OF YOUR FAMILY MEMBERS AND NEIGHBORS TO ENSURE THAT THEY RECEIVED THIS MESSAGE AND ARE AWARE OF THE SERVICE.
    •       WE ALSO ASK THAT IF YOU ARE AWARE THAT SOMEONE YOU KNOW DOES NOT HAVE INTERNET ACCESS, YOU MIGHT OFFER TO ASSIST THEM IN SIGNING UP FOR THE SERVICE SO THAT IN TIMES OF NEIGHBORHOOD EMERGENCIES EVERYONE GETS THE NOTIFICATION.
    •       AGAIN, FURTHER INFORMATION CAN BE OBTAINED BY VISITING YOUR LOCAL GOVERNMENT WEB SITE AND CLICKING ON CODE RED.  THANK YOU.

    April 16, 2010
  16. Griff Wigley said:

    I got all three: email, text message, and voicemail.

    How did they manage to exceed the 160 character limit for a SMS/text message? That text is over 1500 characters.

    April 16, 2010

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