Day: August 22, 2009

From the Times this morning-

The Mayor’s Desk
Carolyn Kirk

Last Thursday, we launched the city’s new Code Red Emergency Notification System.

By Sunday morning, as we realized the enormity of the situation with the water plant, we issued a Code Red emergency notification asking residents to curtail water use.

Code Red is an emergency notification system that basically speed-dials out to the phone numbers in the public phone number database. It is an efficient and direct way to reach thousands of people in a short amount of time with a pre-recorded message.

If you received the introductory call and, or received the Code Red call on Sunday morning regarding the water plant, both recorded by me, then you are in the system and will continue to receive emergency notifications.

If you did not receive any call from Code Red over the past week — or if you would like to change the phone number on file — then you must visit the City of Gloucester’s Web site (www.ci.gloucester.ma.us) and the Code Red link in order to add or change your information. For those of you without Internet access, you can access the city Web site from Sawyer Free Library or the Rose Baker Senior Center.

Since the launch of Code Red, we have received helpful feedback for making the system better. I appreciate the e-mails from residents who’ve provided concrete suggestions such as a caller ID moniker, repeating key information so there isn’t so much to digest all at once, and eliminating a pause at the beginning of the recording so the listener doesn’t hang up.

Like any new system, the kinks need to be worked out. But I am so grateful the system was up and running, and we had rolled out the initial introductory call when we did. Just three days later, we found ourselves needing to get an urgent message out quickly to residents about the failure at the Babson Water Treatment Plant.

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