Mayfield Village Activates CodeRED Emergency Notification Service

Mayfield Village's CodeRED emergency notification service is ready to let residents know about floods, closed roads and other emergencies.

The village paid $6,350 to join CodeRED, which will send messages by land-line phones, cell phones, texts and emails to residents through the community or in a specific neighborhood. Highland Heights and Mayfield Heights also use the CodeRED service.

"It's for any public safety issue that comes up. It could be flooded roadway, it could be a missing child," said Police Chief Richard Edelman.

Residents can sign up for the service at the village's website. The service is already set up to send messages to land-line phones, as long as it is a listed number. Residents and businesses can sign up to also get notification on cell phones and by email.

Edelman and Fire Chief David Mohr are responsible for deciding what alerts to send out to residents. Edelman said there's no way of predicting how often someone might get a CodeRED notification.

"It won't be for community resources, it's for emergency issues," he said.

It could be used for an incident such as the recent water main break at Wilson Mills and SOM Center roads, but that situation was handled right away and might not had required notification.

"It really depends on what kind of emergency it is," Edelman said.

The service also can be used for weather alerts.

"It's different than what goes out on the news. It could be that you're in the direct path of a severe thunderstorm or a tornado," Edelman said.

Previously, a reverse 911 system was available to communities to provide similar notification, but Mayfield Village officials considered it too expensive.

"It was extremely expensive and you had to buy the equipment," Edelman said.