Atchison County residents can sign up for CodeRED emergency alerts

Atchison County residents who want faster notice of severe weather or other urgent public-safety threats can sign up for CodeRED, the county’s emergency alert system, and receive warnings by phone call, text message or email.

The sheriff’s office says citizens are eligible for alerts, notifications and weather warnings through the CodeRED community enrollment page. Residents and businesses can create a profile, add multiple phone numbers and attach the physical address of a home or business, a step that matters because the system ties alerts to location as well as contact information. That makes it useful for households that split time between properties, commute into town or need to keep older relatives and neighbors in the loop.

CodeRED is meant to deliver the kind of messages that cannot wait. In Atchison County, that includes severe thunderstorms, tornado warnings, hazardous-road conditions, evacuations and other emergency notices that are easier to act on when they arrive directly on a phone or in an inbox rather than through word of mouth. The county’s alert system is designed to complement, not replace, television, radio, weather apps and local officials.

The need for redundancy became clear during a nationwide CodeRED cybersecurity incident in late 2025. Atchison County said it was unable to send notifications through CodeRED during the outage and would rely on the Integrated Public Alert & Warning System, or IPAWS, for emergency, life-safety notifications only if needed. The sheriff’s office later said service was restored on Dec. 10, 2025, on the new CodeRED by Crisis24 platform, with checks underway to confirm full functionality.

County emergency officials say that experience is a reminder that no single warning method should stand alone. Atchison County Emergency Management says the outdoor warning siren system is effective for outdoor notification, but residents should have more than one way to receive warnings and notifications. Signing up for CodeRED gives households another layer of protection, especially in a county of more than 16,000 people that includes the city of Atchison and rural areas that can be hit quickly by fast-moving storms.