Decatur County renames alert program 'DC Notify Now' and plans phased switch from Code Red

Staff presented a rebrand of the county’s alerting platform and walked the board through a phased rollout plan that will migrate residents from Code Red to a new county-managed sign-up called "DC Notify Now."

“What is live right now is Rave should start to push notifications through to the EMA Facebook page,” the presenter said while showing the integration test. The presenter said the project (previously called the Brave Project) now has a logo and a landing page on the county website that will host FAQs and a single sign-up link. Staff plan to use the current Code Red user list to push messages with the new sign-up link and to run a cadence of reminders — monthly notices at first, then weekly reminders in the final weeks before shutting off Code Red — to encourage residents to register on the new platform.

The rollout will include options for citizens to select how they receive alerts (phone call, text, email) and staff emphasized that tornado warnings will be the only category configured to ring phones automatically. Board members discussed security and administrative access for posting to multiple Facebook pages, with one staff member warning that authorizing an admin account could create an increased attack surface for those pages.

Staff expects to overlap Code Red and DC Notify Now for a transition period and will notify the public of a firm cutoff date once the group finalizes logistics and tests the integrations.

Next steps: finalize the county landing page, publish FAQs, and use existing Code Red messages to nudge users to sign up for DC Notify Now ahead of the Code Red termination date.