For Immediate Release

Sergeant Anthony Prencipe

In light of the recent tragic fires in Northern California, particularly in Butte County, the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office would like to take this opportunity to reassure our county residents that your Office of Emergency Services (OES), all of our Fire Departments (Federal, State and Local), our partners in Health and Human Services Emergency Preparedness, and our partners in Law Enforcement (Federal, State, and Local) are prepared to deliver to you the very best service possible.  The County’s emergency notification system, Code Red, is fully capable of utilizing the EAS (Emergency Alert System) and WEA (Wireless Emergency Alert) through our Integrated Public Alert Warning System (IPAWS) partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The decision to utilize the IPAWS feature when a Code Red message is being sent out does not occur automatically with every Code Red message being sent out during an emergency. OES has to select the IPAWS feature when utilizing Code Red, and this is done on an “as needed” basis.  OES does not utilize the IPAWS feature with every Code Red message because in a majority of the Code Red messages, the IPAWS feature would cause more confusion and issues for the public, emergency personnel, and law enforcement, than provide a benefit to the situation.  But, in the event of a catastrophic fire such as the Camp Fire, OES would definitely utilize the IPAWS feature to get the word out as far and wide as possible, because time is of the essence in these critical incident situations.

Our Code Red emergency notification system is automatically linked to every telephone connected to a hard “land line” in the county (residential and commercial).  The added feature Code Red provides is the ability to link your cellular and internet telephone to your address through a registration portal found on the Sheriff’s website (www.edso.org) under the “Register to the EDSO-OES Alert Notification System” link at the bottom left of the page.

El Dorado County has one of the very best Emergency Management teams in the State of California.  We have the best Law Enforcement, Fire Departments, Health Professionals, Animal Services, Community Organizations, and most importantly, Residents in the State of California.  We have shown time and again the resolve and community strength to deal with adversity, and we stand ready to face any disaster that may come our way.