About 20,000 Athens County homes were accidently alerted of a CodeRed early Friday morning when an Athens County 9-1-1 Dispatcher pressed the wrong all call button.
At 12:01 a.m., the Athens County 9-1-1 Office received a call about smoke rising from the roof of Bob Evans Restaurant, 357 E. State St.
When attempting to alert the Athens Fire Department, the dispatcher on duty inadvertently initiated a countywide all call on the CodeRed System, according to the office's news release.
It was an accident
said Melissa Fowler-Dixon, the office's administrative assistant, adding that the dispatcher pressed the wrong button when placing the call.
The CodeRed System is a countywide telephone emergency notification service that is capable of dialing thousands of phone numbers per minute in the case of a county emergency, according to the office's website.
The service delivers a recorded message to a live person or answering machine and makes three attempts to contact each number, according the website.
Friday morning, 23,000 telephones were notified in Athens County and more than 12,000 of those called were received in person, according to the release.
A CodeRed is placed to either the entire county or specific areas of the county in case of an evacuation notice, missing person, fires or floods, bomb threat, hostage situations or a chemical spill or gas leak, according to the website.
A CodeRed was placed for The Plains when the tornado struck Fowler-Dixon said.
All Athens Firefighters responded to the Bob Evans call, but there was no fire and the smoke was not coming from the roof, according to the Athens Fire Department.
9-1-1 officials are reviewing the policy regarding deployment of the CodeRed and steps are being taken to prevent a similar occurrence, according to the release.
Fowler-Dixon could not comment on what preventative steps were being taken.
Chief of Operations Doug Bentley was not available to comment.
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Alex Stuckey
