In order to provide a timely alert warning to Bath County residents and visitors for the preservation of life and property, a system has been developed to rapidly disseminate information from government officials to the public. Many technologies are used to ensure message receipt and provide redundancy.
We urge all residents to use this service in as many modes as possible and to get prepared for disasters.
1. CodeRED—Is the center piece of our alert system. After registering online, subscribers will get landline and mobile calls, texts, and emails in the event of a disaster, a hazmat incident, or other critical incident. To register go online to http://www.bathcountyva.org and click on the CodeRED logo at the bottom left of the page.
2. CodeRED Weather Alert—Is a function of CodeRED that sends out warnings automatically and rapidly. When signing up for CodeRED make sure you enable Weather Alert.
3. IPAWS – The Integrated Public Alert & Warning System is a modernization and integration of the nation’s alert and warning infrastructure, and will save time when time matters most, protecting life and property. Federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial alerting authorities can use IPAWS and integrate local systems that use Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) standards with the IPAWS infrastructure. IPAWS provides public safety officials with an effective way to alert and warn the public about serious emergencies using the Emergency Alert System (EAS), Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Weather Radio, and other public alerting systems from a single interface
4. WCHG 107.1—When a CodeRED message is sent we also notify WCHG. During an emergency or disaster, we rely on WCHG to keep the public informed. Updates will be issued to WCHG as conditions change.
5. EAS—WCHG as well as other regional media outlets will issue alerts from the EAS system. While Bath County cannot enter an EAS alert, state, federal and the National Weather Service (NWS) do.
6. NOAA weather radio—In conjunction with the NWS, the NOAA weather radio provides up to the minute weather information. Many newer receivers have the SAME (Specific Area Message Encoding) option that functions like a pager and only enables audio when an alert is issued for Bath County.
7. Scanners—While not the intended use, many folks listen to the main fire/rescue dispatch channel (460.5250 MHz). We have issued special alerts on this frequency.
Contact Information:
Teresa Phillips – Bath County Communications Supervisor
Phone: (540)839-7287
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