All residents of Butler County are encouraged to sign up for a disaster alert system managed by the county emergency services department.

Steve Bicehouse, emergency services director, received approval at Wednesday's county commissioners meeting for a $12,500 expenditure to renew the CodeRED program.

Bicehouse said once residents sign up for CodeRED, they will receive disaster notifications such as an approaching tornado, widespread flooding predictions, evacuation notification for a chemical release, a 911 outage or other disasters.

He stressed that subscribers will not be notified of vehicle accidents, temporary road closures and other, more frequent emergency situations over CodeRED, as it will be saved for critical notifications.

“We don't want people to get used to the alerts,” Bicehouse said.

The expenditure for the renewal is eligible for reimbursement, Bicehouse said.

He said the system is now available to county residents and has about 4,000 subscribers.

Residents can sign up for CodeRED by visiting the county website, www.co.butler.pa.us, then clicking on the “Departments” tab, and then “Emergency services” in the drop-down menu.

CodeRED is listed on the left, and residents can follow prompts to sign up.

The system can send text messages, email or call subscribers on their home or cell phones, Bicehouse said.