Code Red Used For Pumping Station Outage

Decatur Metro | June 22, 2008

As I’m sure many of you are aware, the City of Decatur used its “Code Red” notification system this morning to announce that the reason water pressure was low or non-existent this morning was due to a “power outage at a pumping station”.

But here’s the thing…by the time we got the message, full water pressure had been restored.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like this notification system but perhaps in a non-emergency situation they could call it something other than “Code Red”. I still get that initial lump in my stomach when I see that phone number with so many 9s and 1s and hear the words “code red”.

UPDATE: 11Alive has details about why the water outage occurred.

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No Responses to “Code Red Used For Pumping Station Outage”

  1. Linda Harris says:
    June 22, 2008 at 10:13 am

    Thanks for posting this information on your blog. The pressure is being restored bit by bit. Good to hear that yours was fixed at the same time you got the message. The water pressure here at City Hall is just now being restored. I guess we could call water messages Code Blue – but isn’t that a new beer commercial? Seriously, though, the system we purchased is a CodeRed system and therefore we must use their name in our messages.

    Linda Harris
    Assistant Director
    Community & Economic Development Department
    City of Decatur

  2. decaturite says:
    June 22, 2008 at 10:32 am

    Thanks for the comment Linda. I suspected there might be some kind of contractual obligation to use the name “Code Red”. Just thinking out loud…Would it be possible to use the words “non-emergency” right at the beginning of the message? Something like “This is a non-emergency Code Red message from the city of Decatur…”?

  3. altmod says:
    June 22, 2008 at 10:34 am

    I got nervous too! I think we live in the same ‘hood (Ponce Heights?). Ours was never affected. Happy to get the call though and know the system is working for a real emergency (although me not showering could be close to a code red!). Thanks to Linda for explaining.