Decatur County to switch emergency alert vendor, board approves contract with Rave after Code Red failures

After hearing from 9-1-1 and IT staff about recent problems migrating and sending public alerts through the county’s existing Code Red system, commissioners voted to sign a contract with Rave for public emergency notifications.

An IT/911 official described tests and migration issues with the current vendor, explaining that the interface changes and data migration left some residents without alerts and that the county had difficulty getting confirmation Code Red was delivering messages reliably. The official said Rave integrates with systems already used for internal public-safety communications and would simplify public enrollment.

Commissioners discussed the practical downsides — including the administrative cost and the prospect of asking the public to re-enroll in a new system twice within a year — and confirmed funds are available through state 9-1-1 allocations to pay for the transition. One commissioner said, “I don’t like the idea of having to have everybody sign up twice,” but added that public safety required a reliable notification system.

The board voted to proceed with the Rave contract and to pay any costs necessary to exit the existing Code Red agreement so the county could restore a reliable public alerting capability. The motion carried.