BELMONT COUNTY EMA DIRECTOR DAVE IVAN

Ohio state and local leaders are encouraging Buckeye State residents to sign up to receive emergency alerts.

Ohio Department of Public Safety Director Andy Wilson, Belmont County Emergency Management Agency Dave Ivan, and Ohio Emergency Management Agency, and Ohio Emergency Management Administrative Officer Jeff Greene held a press conference Thursday at the Belmont County EMA headquarters in an effort to have residents sign up for the Code Red alert.

Wilson said that the Code Red initiative saves lives in the event of a natural disaster or other emergency situation.

Belmont County 911 uses Code Red to send emergency notifications by phone, email, text and a free mobile app to keep residents informed of emergencies such as evacuation notices, utility outages, water main breaks, fire or floods, chemical spills, or other emergency situations.

“If you truly want to keep your family safe in a time of crisis or emergency, you need to sign up for these alert systems so that we can get you the information that you need that literally may save your life,” Wilson said.

There is no charge to register for or use Code Red and personal information will always be kept confidential.

To be sure to receive the alerts, residents are asked to add their home phone, cell phone and/or email address into the Code Red database.

To sign up for the Code Red alerts, residents can call 866-419-5000 or text BELMONT to 99411.

“We’re trying to help you. Helping yourselves is the big thing, and we can’t do it without you,” Ivan said.

He added that roughly 50% of the county is signed up for the code red alerts but he ideally would like to see 100% signed up. Ivan then said that there was recently a house that exploded in Shadyside and Mayor Robert Newhart approached him after everyone was evacuated and it was time for the residents to return to their homes.

Newhart asked Ivan if the Code Red system was then able to contact all of the evacuated residents that it was safe to return.

Ivan said that unfortunately most of the residents who were needed to be contacted only had their home phones registered with the program. That is why he believes it is crucial for residents to sign up to the system with both their cell phone and home phone numbers.

“We believe strongly that, as the director said, everybody needs to know about it, and hopefully everybody gets on board and opts in,” Greene said. “Every jurisdiction across the state has some type of system in place, but again, the public has to opt in to those things. So we’re here to spread the word of Code Red for Belmont County.”

Wilson also spoke about the launch of a new suspicious activity reporting system. The new system, called Safeguard Ohio, uses artificial intelligence to gather actionable information on potential threats of violence.

“The AI-infused prompts are essential components of this new system,” Ohio Homeland Security Executive Director Mark Porter said. “We will get the high quality intelligence we need to act on a tip through this new system. The AI is trained to keep asking questions until the person reporting says they have no more information about the incident.”

Safeguard Ohio is the first criminal justice tip-reporting app in the country to use AI in this manner.

It uses AI to encourage users to provide as much information as possible to help law enforcement investigate suspicious activity. The new app allows users to upload video, audio, and photos of an incident while giving individuals the option to remain anonymous.

“One of the best attributes of this new system is the ability to upload video and photos,” Wilson said. “More and more people these days, especially our younger generation, don’t like to talk on the phone. This new reporting method will result in more detailed information being shared with the authorities. That’s exactly what we want. Better information leads to better investigations.”

He added it allows Ohio Homeland Security to gather the type of information needed with a greater degree of specificity to get information that can get the information to the right place. “This is important, because in every critical incident that we have in the country, mass shootings, when you look at the investigation a lot of times, if you peel back the layers just a little bit, somebody knew something. And they either didn’t say something, or they didn’t know who to say it to, or they maybe said something to the wrong person,” Wilson said.

He added that he believes the new system is designed to avoid those situations and get critical information that will allow Homeland Security to interdict or mitigate the potential of an attack or a catastrophe, and get that information to the right area.

The new system is 10 different languages, and can be found at Ohio Homeland Security’s website.