Douglas County warns thousands may miss emergency alerts after system change

Residents from Castle Rock to Parker could miss evacuation orders, shelter-in-place notices and boil-water alerts unless they re-register for Douglas County’s new emergency notification system. County officials say about 120,000 people were signed up under CodeRED, but only about 23,000 had enrolled in DougCoAlert by April 9, leaving a large gap in a county of more than 400,000 residents.

The warning comes after Douglas County cut ties with CodeRED following a late-2025 cyberattack that raised concerns about user data. Crisis24 said the breach may have exposed names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers and passwords. Sheriff Darren Weekly said in December that the county could not reliably reach residents during a prescribed-burn alert because the system was down, underscoring how quickly a notification failure can become a public-safety problem.

Douglas County announced DougCoAlert on January 15 as the replacement for CodeRED, and officials say anyone who had previously enrolled must sign up again. The county describes DougCoAlert as a free service for residents, workers and travelers in Douglas County, with alerts for natural disasters, evacuations, shelter-in-place orders, law enforcement activity and other public-safety emergencies. The new platform also lets users respond by phone, text, email and polling, giving emergency managers more detailed information during a crisis.

South Metro Fire Rescue spokesman Matthew Assell said many residents do not realize their old CodeRED registration no longer counts, and county officials have been trying to push the message through online outreach and social media. Taylor Davis of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said that effort continues because the enrollment gap remains a concern, especially in places where a fast-moving wildfire can cut off escape routes with little warning.

Cathy Raley, who leads the Arapahoe County 911 Authority, said the issue is especially serious in rural and wind-prone areas, where even a few minutes can determine whether a family evacuates safely or gets trapped by flames. Douglas County says its alert system is part of a layered approach that also includes IPAWS, Wireless Emergency Alerts and the Emergency Alert System. In March, the county added Hi-Lo sirens as a backup evacuation warning tool when digital systems fail.

The change has also affected Arapahoe County, where the upgraded ArapAlert system requires every user to re-register, even those who were signed up before. Arapahoe County says its platform uses enhanced mapping technology to send more precise warnings for wildfires, hazardous materials incidents, severe weather, evacuations and shelter-in-place orders. County officials there note that landline users are already in the 9-1-1 database, but everyone else has to opt in again to stay covered.