Columns

Code Red complaints just make you see red

By JEFF WEBB
Published January 21, 2007

Although I try to avoid being ill-mannered or shrill when offering criticism in this column, today I beg your pardon in advance because I'm not even going to try to sugar-coat my outrage about this headline from last week:

Complaints follow Code Red calls

The story beneath that headline told of a 72-year-old man who has advanced Alzheimer's disease. He wandered away from his home in the Silverthorn subdivision about 6 p.m. on Jan. 12. Desperate to find him, the Hernando County Sheriff's Office decided to activate the reverse 911 automated telephone alert system, Code Red, which is shared by several county agencies.

The notification system dialed 33,563 residences and businesses within a 5-mile radius of the home where the missing man's wife waited anxiously for word about her husband. Of those calls, about 23,500 were answered. The calls asking for residents to be on the lookout for the man went out at 9:47 and again at 10:18 p.m.

And guess what? It worked. About 1:30 the next morning, a man and his son, James and Justin Berleth, who had gone out to look around after hearing about the missing man on television, found him lying on the ground at a construction site near the busy intersection of Barclay Avenue and Spring Hill Drive. The next morning at 8:14 a.m., Code Red redialed everyone to let people know the story's happy ending.

But some people didn't care that someone was lost or found. We know this because they became the first Code Red call recipients in the county ever to complain about their privacy being interrupted at such a "late" hour. Gee, I wonder what kind of hissy fit they would throw if their phones rang after midnight?

Shame on them! There is no excuse for such a selfish, unfeeling response to an emergency that had life-or-death consequences. If not for the Code Red notification - and the admirable concern and compassion of the Berleth family - this man easily could have died.

As I delve a little deeper into my disgust, I can't help but wonder whether it was the circumstance, not the actual calls, that drew the unsympathetic reactions.

What if the calls had been to warn residents that their water supply was contaminated? Or that an escaped prisoner had been spotted in their neighborhood? Or that a rogue tidal surge was flooding the coastline, as it did in 1993, and they needed to evacuate?

My guess is - acknowledging that it is risky to predict the choices of those who lack core values - that they would want a call about any of those circumstances, night or day.

But a lost person, in mind and body, not only doesn't move them to take a look around their yard, it triggers a need to gripe? I could live to be 100 and never understand such deliberate indifference.

If it had been their loved one who was in trouble, they would not have complained. In fact, they probably would have complained about the complainers.

Still, I hope these grouses never find themselves or a loved one in a similar situation. Even self-absorbed grumble-poops deserve our good wishes.

The Sheriff's Office is checking to see whether it can accommodate those who want their telephone numbers taken off the emergency notification list. If that is possible, they will be removed from the databank and join residents who have unlisted numbers and cell phones. (Likewise, those people can have their numbers added to the automated call system. Go to http://www.hernandosheriff.org, the Sheriff's Office Web site.)

In the meantime, here's my advice to the Sheriff's Office - and the fire, utilities and emergency management departments. It's a simple two-step procedure for handling complaints from residents who say they don't want to be bothered.

- Listen politely to their complaints.

- Ignore said complainers.

These folks do not represent the vast majority who have a sense of obligation and belonging in their community and who actually care more about their neighbors than they do about their beauty sleep.

Jeff Webb can be reached at webb@sptimes.com or (352) 754-6123.

[Last modified January 20, 2007, 21:29:59]