Buckingham County News
The County of Buckingham has contracted with Emergency Communications Network, Inc., of Ormond Beach, Florida, for its "CodeRED" high-speed telephone emergency notification services. The CodeRED system gives county officials the ability to deliver pre-recorded emergency telephone notification/information messages to targeted areas or the entire County at a rate of up to 60,000 calls per hour.
Jamie Shumaker, Buckingham's IT Manager, cautioned that such systems are only as good as the telephone database supporting them. "If your phone number is not in the database, you will not be called". The CodeRED system not only offers faster calling rates and improved message delivery, it gives individuals and businesses the ability to add their own phone numbers directly to the system's telephone database. Shumaker emphasized that this is an extremely important feature.
Kevin Flippen, E911 Cooradinator, explained that the "CodeRED system is a geographical based notification system, which means street addresses are needed to select which phone numbers will receive emergency notification calls in any given situation. The system works fine for cell phones too, but we have to have a street address". People who have recently moved but kept the same listed or unlisted phone number also need to change their address in the database.
Flippen stated, "CodeRED gives those who want to be included an easy and secure method for doing so. The information will only be used for emergency notification purposes". Questions should be directed to the Jamie Shumaker at (434) 969-5022 or Kevin Flippen at (434) 969-7734
