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WEST PITTSTON — Borough officials recently unveiled a new notification program to alert residents of emergencies throughout the Garden Village via phone calls, text messages, emails and social media utilizing the CodeRED program.
CodeRED is a free emergency alert service provided to West Pittston Borough residents to keep them informed of local events that may impact their safety. For example, residents may be notified if there is a missing child, wildfires, criminal activity or public health crisis. In the event of a natural disaster like a flood, an alert will be sent for emergency preparedness and evacuation plans.
West Pittston Police Dept. Sgt. Sam Fuller has been placed in charge of overseeing the project.
“CodeRED will be very beneficial in aiding residents in times of disasters, like the last flood for example,” Fuller said. “Our hope is that all residents take part in the program to insure their safety and the safety of their fellow neighbors.”
The cost to the borough to participate in the CodeRED program is $4,760 per year.
“The Borough of West Pittston will benefit from CodeRED,” Mayor Tony Denisco said. “We can broadcast any information we want in case of a fire, snow storm, flood or any disaster that we know in advance that we can pass on potential lifesaving notifications to the residents. Forty Fort just got in on the program and they are up and running.”
Wyoming Area School District has a similar system in place called School Messenger where the fee is based on enrollment. This year’s contract with School Messenger is $4,676, based on $2 per student for approximately 2,338 students.
In order to participate in the CodeRED program, residents must register cell phones and verify their home location during enrollment. This will ensure borough officials accuracy when targeting a direct impact in their neighborhood pertaining to homes and businesses.
Borough officials assure residents all information submitted to participate in the program will remain private and will only be used for community notifications.
To register, residents should log onto https://public.coderedweb.com/CNE/BF660248106D. For registration help, call 1-866-939-0911.
Required information includes contact name, address, city, state and zip code as well as whether the property is a residence or business. A telephone number is also required upon signup.
Facebook users may go to the West Pittston Police Department page and follow the link to register.
In the event of an emergency and a call from CodeRED is received, the caller ID will read: 855-969-5000. A CodeRED general message code will read: 855-969-4636. It will be up to the phone user to add those two contact numbers to their phone address book.
In case a message from CodeRED is missed, residents may call back the number that called their phone to replay the message.
CodeRED does work with landlines and will leave a message on an answering machine as long as the landline is connected to a corded line.
If a resident’s phone line is busy, CodeRED will make two more attempts to leave a message.
“Once registered, it will be important to keep your vital information stored with CodeRED updated at all times to ensure accuracy that the calls are being made properly,” Fuller said.
Pamphlets regarding CodeRED will be distributed to residents over the next few weeks.