From the Decatur Minute….

Today at 5:00 P.M. the City will conduct its annual test of the CodeRED notification system. In an effort to kill two birds with one stone, the message will include a brief announcement about the tornado outdoor warning siren installation sounding on Friday, January 22nd. If you do not receive your call, please contact Police Captain Kris Boyett at 404-373-6551 or kris.boyett@decaturga.com.

Lots of rain in the area this morning.

Flash-flood warnings cover most of the metro area until 2:45p this afternoon. Decatur’s Code Red Weather Alert just issued a flood warning.

Up to 4 inches of rain is expected.

Roads are flooded. My basement is flooding more than usual.  My feet are wet.

Captain Obvious out.

Carl points out that Decatur’s CodeRED Weather Warning System is already up and running and that folks which have already opted in to the service received a call on Tuesday morning when DeKalb was under the tornado watch.

The CodeRED Weather Warning works much like the city’s relatively new CodeRED Emergency Notification System, calling residents when there’s an event to report.  However, unlike the Emergency Notification system, you must opt in to the Weather Warning system to receive a call.

Here are the details, straight off the city’s website…

Subscribers receive warning messages any time severe weather threatens the City of Decatur/DeKalb County area.  The CodeRED Weather Warning will not call everyone on the list, only the immediately affected areas. The information is based on instant satellite feeds and latitude/longitude coordinates and uses new polygon warning methodologies thus eliminating many false alarms associated with prior notification methods.

The City of Decatur does not initiate the call-outs – it is done automatically via the proactive Weather Warning system upon notification by the National Weather Service (NWS).

So, if you’re interested in avoiding tornados and other weather hazards, click here to register.

Anyone else just receive a call from 999/911-9999?

That would have been Decatur’s new Code Red system notifying you that non-safety operations (including trash) will not be available on December 31st and January 1st as first reported on the little yellow door tags we got a few weeks ago.

Will we now be getting a call for every trash-related emergency?

The phone number alone kinda freaked me out. It was almost as scary as getting a call from 666/666-6666.

UPDATE: See Linda Harris’ official city comments below clarifying that yesterday’s call was a system test and they won’t always be using this to report minor things like changes to the trash system.

Regardless of my teasing (which is just more fun to write), I do think this is a great initiative taken up by the city.  This isn’t the kind of good PR, knee-jerk reaction to crises we see at the federal level.  This is cool-headed planning that ultimately can save lives in an emergency.  Kudos to everyone at the city level that worked on making this project a reality.