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ST. CLAIRSVILLE -- Residents of Belmont County should expect a phone call at noon today as the county's Code Red reverse 911 system will make a mass, non-emergency call drill to "clean out" the system.
Belmont County 911 Director Bryan Minder said this includes all land lines, which are automatically connected to the Code Red system. Voice-over-internet numbers are not considered land lines.
"We're going to put out a county-wide call of everybody that's currently in our database. It's going to notify them that they've received this call.
"There's nothing they need to do on their part, they can just verify that they are properly signed up on Code Red. Code Red will then look at the data to see which numbers did not answer, and any numbers that come back with a message stating this number is no longer valid or no longer in service, those phone numbers will then be removed from the database, so it's going to remove any bad numbers that are no longer in service," he said.
"If you don't receive the call, it's suggested you sign yourself up for Code Red because you didn't receive the call. So anyone who doesn't receive it who thought they should have, and you don't, at noon (Tuesday) make sure you go online to our website, belmontcounty911.com, and click on the link for Code Red and sign yourself up," he said.
Minder said owners of VOIP phones which are not hard lined but use the internet are not automatically in the database and must sign up. Cellphones must also be manually signed up.
"What we tell everybody is whether you think you're in it or not, just sign yourself up to be sure. You won't get two calls if you happen to be signed up twice. It's going to recognize that you're already in the database. It won't sign you up a second time," he said.
The call will give a pre-recorded message regardless of whether someone answers.
"You have to pick up, but it will leave you a message on your voicemail or answering machine if you are not able to pick up," he said. "If you received this, there's nothing you need to do on your part, and you're currently signed up."
Minder said there are more than 50,000 numbers in the database and removing the numbers not in service will make the system efficient in the future, should it be necessary to make a countywide call.
"We've been using it for a long time. Code Red's been a great service for us," he said, noting the service has alerted residents to water breaks, missing persons and other incidents that impact their neighborhoods. "We've found missing people over the years, we've located different things like that."
While Minder did not know how many people have newly signed up for Code Red recently, he said the word is getting out and more people are calling with interest.