The City of Decatur just sent out an announcement saying that they’ve retired the Code Red emergency alert system in favor of enhanced services from Smart 911.  Residents now must take action and opt-in to enhanced Smart 911 features in order to continue to receive emergency alerts from the city.  More below…

This week, the City of Decatur transitioned to an enhanced Smart911 system to make communication between residents and public safety agencies easier and more convenient. In addition to providing details about their household to 9-1-1 dispatchers on emergency calls, Smart911 now gives users the option to opt-in to receive emergency and general notifications from the city. This Smart911 option replaces the CodeRed emergency and weather notifications. Since the City of Decatur is no longer using the CodeRed system, all CodeRed users who wish to continue to receive emergency alerts from the city should create a private and secure Safety Profile at www.Smart911.com. Anyone already registered with a Safety Profile at Smart911.com can simply log into their account to opt-in to the new enhanced features.

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So, I’ve realized we haven’t spent much, if any, time looking into the results of the always interesting Decatur Citizen Survey.

The survey is conducted once every two years and was most recently released in September 2014.  And there are always some interesting little tidbits in there worth highlighting.

For starters, here’s an interesting bar chart showing resident feedback of the city’s various “technology services”.

Smart 911 – a free service that allows residents and business owners to create a safety profile of vital personal and household data, which is available to emergency “call takers” immediately –  and the CodeRed Emergency Notification System – a phone notification system for emergency situations – ranked #1 and #2 in residents’ opinions. (Click the links above to sign up for and learn more about these programs.)

Meanwhile, the city’s free wi-fi initiative, which was pulled out of residential neighborhoods back in 2013 and is now only offered in public spaces, rated lowest with only a total of 49% of residents rating it “Excellent” or “Good”.

Tonight, Asst. City Manager Andrea Arnold presented the idea of having Decatur join the “Smart 911″ Emergency Health Data website.

The city commission approved the measure meaning that residents will soon be able to go to Smart911.com and enter health and strategic information about yourself, your family members, and your property that would be available to first responders if you ever called 911 inside the City of Decatur.

Above you’ll find a brief synopsis from a local newscast from elsewhere about the service.

For those interested, I’m sure the city will let us know when the service is open to Decatur residents.