Crime & Safety
Stay Safe in Grafton With Emergency Alert Notifications
Two apps, Ping4Alerts and CodeRED, are alerting Grafton residents to emergency situations on the go.
Residents in Grafton now have two ways to stay safe in case of emergency events.
Instead of the outdated Reverse 911, a call sent to every landline in a town, new apps are being created to send that information to residents' smart phones.
“The old Reverse 911 was implemented in 2008, and it was getting antiquated and I believe, under-utilized,” Sheriff Lewis G. Evangelidis told the Worcester Telegram and Gazette.
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To replace that system, the Sheriff's Office has invested in the Ping4Alerts system which uses location based data from peoples iPhone or Android to alert them of relevant information sent out by a public safety organization.
The other option, CodeRED, is an app utilized by the town of Grafton to send similar information to residents in the area. CodeRED launched in Grafton in 2011, any message sent out through the system needs to be approved by the Town Administrator or Chief of Police.
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Evangelidis said the redundancy gives Grafton residents the ability to get information from local sources at the town level and regional sources like the Sheriff's Department.
"If, God forbid, the Town of Grafton can’t afford it anymore, we will have a system free of charge," he said to the Grafton Villager.
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