CodeRED system keeps Town of Hamburg safe, informed during brutal winter season

The Town of Hamburg, NY credited its use of the CodeRED emergency notification system to keeping town residents safe during a harsh winter season that caused road and agency closures, and the possibility of dangerous carbon monoxide emissions.

“Without the CodeRED system, I certainly wouldn’t have been proactive. We would have been strictly reactive and relying on our dispatch center to tell every citizen who calls with a question what the plan was. That would have been a huge burden on our dispatch center,” said Sean Crotty, Town of Hamburg Emergency Manager.

CodeRED was the obvious choice for Crotty and his team when it came to proactively initiating alerts that were vital to the well-being of all residents. The initial alerts issued in advance of January’s winter storm notified the community of a travel advisory and encouraged residents to avoid any unnecessary travel. The system was also used to alert residents of the potential of carbon monoxide backing up into a house as a result of snow blocked high-efficiency furnace vents.

“Messages mentioned what residents could expect of us and what we expected of them,” Crotty said. “Residents were really good in understanding our CodeRED use. Everything went really well.”

The use of the CodeRED system during this time led to 1,200-1,500 citizens signing up to receive future alerts.

The Town of Hamburg has been on board with CodeRED and a client of Emergency Communications Network for more than eight months. “Everyone I have spoken to at ECN has been great, super helpful and always willing to help. That speaks volumes of the team’s work ethic,” Crotty said.