(UPDATE, NOVEMBER 12) The Cascade County Sheriff's Office has postponed the scheduled test of the CodeRED Emergency Notification System.
Sheriff Jesse Slaughter said on Wednesday morning that over the past several days, his agency and others have experienced technical difficulties with the CodeRED platform, affecting both public sign-ups and internal system access.
In coordination with the Cascade County Disaster and Emergency Services (DES), the Great Falls Police Department (GFPD), and Great Falls Fire Rescue (GFFR), the organization has postponed the planned public test of the CodeRED emergency notification system.
DES and the Sheriff’s Office are working with CodeRED’s service provider to correct the issue and verify that all user registrations are functioning properly. Once those fixes are complete, a new test date will be announced.
(1st REPORT, NOVEMBER 6) At 10 a.m. on Wednesday, November 12, 2025, Cascade County Disaster & Emergency Services will conduct a county-wide test alert of the CodeRED Emergency Notification System.
The test will come in the form of a phone call relaying a recorded message from Cascade County Sheriff Jesse Slaughter.
As part of this system test, calls will be delivered to all numbers in the database over the course of about an hour. This gradual delivery is expected and ensures the system can handle large-scale notifications. No action is required.
The CodeRED system allows Cascade County and City of Great Falls public safety officials to communicate quickly with Cascade County communities by sending mass phone calls and texts when there is a large-scale disaster or emergency.
In the recent past, community alerts included evacuation notices for fast-approaching wildland fires and law enforcement officers asking for help to find lost children.
The agency said in a news release that testing the CodeRED system increases the efficiency of the system and the speed at which notifications will be delivered during an actual emergency; it is also intended to encourage community members who are not enrolled to sign-up for future alerts.
The CodeRED system is free - but you must sign up to receive alerts. Once you register, you must specifically opt-in to receive alerts.
For more information or to register for the service, visit the websites of Cascade County DES or the City of Great Falls.
You can also sign up by texting CascadeAlert to the number 99411.
