Cascade County Disaster and Emergency Services, a department that earlier this year was moved under the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office, is conducting a test of the CodeRED emergency notification system in partnership with the Great Falls Police Department and Great Falls Fire Rescue at 10 a.m. Nov. 12.
The test includes a phone call relaying a recorded message from Cascade County Sheriff Jesse Slaughter.
As part of the system test, calls will be delivered to all numbers in the database over the course of about an hour. This gradual delivery is expected and ensures the system can handle large-scale notifications. No action is required.
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Community members are encouraged to ensure their information is current, enroll online or text “CascadeAlert” to the number 99411.
The CodeRED system allows county and city public safety officials to communicate quickly with Cascade County communities by sending mass phone calls and texts when there is a large-scale disaster or emergency.
In the recent past, community alerts included evacuation notices for fast approaching wildland fires and law enforcement officers seeking help to find lost children, according to CCSO.
In October, Cascade County Commissioners approved a three year contract for CodeRED.
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The contact total is $30,334.26, divided equally as $10,111.42 for each of the three years of the contract term.
The system, provided by OnSolve, is an emergency communication program used countywide to notify the public of emergencies, but is also used internally by Cascade County Sheriff’s Office, Great Falls Police Department and Great Falls Fire Rescue.
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The new contract runs Nov. 14 through Nov. 13, 2028 and includes 127,500 message units annually, with overages billed at 10 cents per message unit in blocks of 12,750.
During their Oct. 8 work session, Undersheriff Scott Van Dyken said that the system is run through Cascade County Disaster and Emergency Services, which is now housed within CCSO.
It’s a “very, very important system,” he said.
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The county can send emergency notifications countywide, or geofence them for specific incidents, depending on the situation, he said.
“This is a great tool,” Van Dyken said.
He said the county hasn’t even exceeded its annual allotment of messages.
The city is not currently paying the county for use of CodeRed, nor is the city contributing in the new three-year contract, Van Dyken said.
During a May 19 CCSO budget discussion with county commissioners, Van Dyken said the county was doing an bridge contract for CodeRed for three months while working out the final details of a new contract, which at that time was estimated at $12,000 annually.
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Van Dyken said they’ll need to look at sharing those costs with the city since the county can’t keep absorbing that cost.
He said they could consider using a similar formula to dispatch fees the city charges and offset those costs.
“No matter what it is, they should pay their share,” County Commissioner Jim Larson said in May.
