LITTLE ROCK — Two months ago, Izard County Judge Rayburn Finley could hear tornado sirens at his home a few miles east of Melbourne only when it was still and the wind was blowing in the right direction.
Now, under a new warning system, the ring of Finley's telephone notifies him of troubling weather.
This summer, the mostly rural county in north-centralArkansas has joined a handful of other counties and cities in the state implementing the CodeRed Emergency Notification System, an automated telephone warning program. "It works," Finley said of the device. "We had a pretty good storm come through here the other day, and I was notified."
It costs the county about $8,000 a year, Finley said, adding, "There's no charge to the people. It's worth it for the safety."
Residents in the county, population 13,249, can subscribe to the service and be notified by phone of tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings, flood warnings, missing children alerts and other emergency messages for their area.
"We've been hit pretty hard the past couple of years," said Stephanie Pittman, deputy coordinator for the Izard County Office of Emergency Management. "We need this."
The idea to get the service came a year and a half ago when a Feb. 5, 2008, tornado killed two in the small community of Zion, about five miles east of Melbourne. Pittman said that tragedy and this year's devastating ice storm were catalysts in joining CodeRed.
The Izard County tornado happened during the afternoon, so residents were awake and aware of the twister. But most couldn't receive television signals clearly for warnings that day; word of mouth was the main way residents received information about the storm, she said.
However, six of the last seven tornadoes in Arkansas that resulted in fatalities occurred at night when most people were asleep, said John Robinson, warning coordinator for the National Weather Service in North Little Rock.
"The more ways of getting out warnings, the better," Robinson said. "I think this system is very effective."
CodeRed, based in Ormond Beach, Fla., uses National Weather Service warnings and forecasts to alert subscribers.
Meteorologists predict a storm's path and create a polygon weather alert. Those in the area are warned by telephone with a brief recorded message.
If the storm's path makes sudden changes, the weather service issues new projections, and a second round of calls are made to those in the new threatened areas. The system can make up to 2,000 calls per minute, based on the area's phone-line capacities.
"We don't try and be overly precise in our warning areas," Robinson said. "We have to allow for some leeway in case the storm shifts.
"If you look at that [Feb. 5] tornado in 2008, it looks like it made a straight line from Atkins to Izard County. But it took a lot of jogs and changed directions frequently.
"As a tornado dies out, it may make a turn. We don't want any surprises, so we warn a larger area."
About 300 Izard County residents have subscribed to the service since it began operation in July, Pittman said.
"We're trying to get the word out," Pittman said.
CodeRed began about 10 years ago in response to a need for broadcasting missing children reports, said David DiGiacomo, a corporate spokesman. It added storm and flood warnings, and later included the capability for local officials to leave messages of their own.
County emergency officialscan record messages about escaped prisoners, boil orders, toxic spills and evacuations, and other messages and then direct them to intended recipients.
"We're pinpointing the location of storms and warning only those in its path," DiGiacomo said. "We're eliminating that 'cry wolf' syndrome where there may be a storm in one corner of the county, but everyone in the county is warned.
"We're using a 'push technology' rather than a 'pull technology,'" he said. "This will get your attention."
The system can call cell phones and land lines within three seconds of a weather service's issuance of a severe thunderstorm, flash flood or tornado warning, he said.
Izard County residents can go to the Web site www.myizardcounty.com to sign on with the service. Or they can go to the county courthouse in Melbourne. Van Buren County also subscribed to the service, along with the cities of Cabot, Bryant and Hot Springs.
Osceola, in tornado-stricken Mississippi County, hooked up about a year ago, too.
"I like it," said Osceola Fire Chief Phillip Fleming. "Before, we had to make decisions whether to turn on the [tornado] sirens if a tornado was somewhere in the county. Now, we hit the sirens in the path where the calls are made."
Osceola has about 8,000 subscribers, he said. The cost to the city is $12,000 a year; several factories and the Osceola School District chip in about $10,000a year, leaving the city to pay $2,000 annually.
Fleming's received a few complaints from residents who don't like being awakened in the early hours by telephone calls about flash flood warnings.
"They say, 'If it's a tornado, call me. If not, don't,'" Fleming said. "But, you have to take the good with the bad," he said. "Some people who may live in flood-prone areas can get up and move their vehicles, if they need to. It gives us more pinpointing capabilities."
He said the Osceola School District also can call its patrons when it closes schools because of icy weather.
"It's weird," he said. "We've had warnings and my phone rings, my wife's phone rings and my son's phone rings at the same time. But they're letting us know."
Telephone caller IDs will only show the CodeRed numbers and not its name, DiGiacomo said. The company is working on adding the name so residents won't assume the calls are from telemarketers and refuse to answer.
The phone numbers that will show on a telephone's caller ID system are (800) 566-9780 for weather warnings and (866) 419-5000 for locally recorded messages. The company also offers replays of warnings if the numbers are called.
"This is advantageous for rural counties where you can't go door to door and notify people of storms," DiGiacomo said. "This gives people more time to seek shelter during bad storms, and it gives them the heads-up more quickly."
Arkansas, Pages 11, 17 on 08/22/2009