HAZLETON, Pa. — The Code Red app is now an option for folks in the city of Hazleton to stay up to speed on things happening in the city.
"Right now, most people look for social media to be their information updaters. So this here would be instantaneously, all to follow the emergency workers, have access to a fire chief, the police chief, DPW Deputy Director, and my office, so if any one of us need to get emergency out, we could do right from our phone and send it out, instantaneously," said Mayor Cusat.
Mayor Jeff Cusat says the city had a system like this in the past, but the operator went out of business. It was helpful to residents, so he is happy it's been replaced.
"In the past, this system worked very well. We use the for street emergency street closing snow plowing. Any other message that we really needed to get out there. So after the research, cold red came as our best option," said Mayor Cusat.
The mayor tells Newswatch 16 this alert system will be better than the one the city used in the past because it has targeting messaging capabilities.
"It can be sectioned off. So if we have an emergency in one section of town, we could put that address in and say how far radius we want to go from there. So it's a little more accurate pinpointing situations," said Mayor Cusat.
You can check out the app's website to download it here.