Buncombe County Restores BC Alerts System, Urges Residents to Re-Enroll Now

With wildfire season approaching and spring severe-weather threats mounting, Buncombe County relaunched its BC Alerts emergency notification system March 31 on a new platform and is telling every resident the same thing: re-enroll now.

The county switched from CodeRED, the former vendor whose November 2025 data breach disabled alert distribution for months, to Rave, operating under the Smart911 platform. Because the two systems do not share data, anyone who previously registered with CodeRED must create a new account from scratch to continue receiving emergency messages.

Re-enrollment is straightforward: text BCReady to 67283 from any mobile phone, or register online through the county. The Rave/Smart911 platform supports text, phone call, and email notifications, and officials specifically recommended enabling all three contact methods to build redundancy into personal emergency plans.

Fire Marshal Kevin Tipton underscored the urgency. "If there's one thing I would tell people to do today to prepare, it's to sign up for BC Alerts," he said.

The November cyberattack struck the third-party vendor operating CodeRED and disrupted BC Alerts' ability to push messages, including evacuation orders, wildfire warnings, and severe-weather notices, to the public for nearly five months. The county emphasized that 911 service and emergency response operations were never affected; only the public-facing alert distribution went offline. Data migration and testing on the Rave platform continued through early 2026, culminating in the March 31 full cutover and public relaunch.

The breach may also have exposed data belonging to registered CodeRED users. The county advised reviewing passwords and account security for any service tied to that provider.

Officials from the Buncombe County Public Information Office and Fire Marshal's Office also cautioned residents to rely on official channels rather than third-party social media posts when protective-action instructions are issued. The new platform, they said, is designed to deliver alerts faster and with greater reliability than its predecessor, arriving just as the region enters its most dangerous weather months.