Local Wireless Emergency Alerts Are Unavailable

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 21, 2025

Stanton County Emergency Management Agency

The Stanton County Emergency Management Agency is notifying residents that the CodeRED mass-notification system is currently offline nationwide following a cybersecurity incident reported by the vendor in early November. As a result, Stanton County EMA cannot issue local Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) through FEMA’s IPAWS system.

This outage does not affect the National Weather Service alerts, which will continue to appear on wireless devices and media outlets. However, locally initiated county emergency alerts—such as evacuation notices, immediate safety instructions, or major incident updates—cannot currently be sent through WEA.

During this interruption, Stanton County EMA will rely on outdoor warning sirens, local media, official social media pages, county websites, and direct notifications from the Sheriff’s Office and our local Fire/EMS to relay urgent information if necessary.

Residents are encouraged to:

• Ensure Wireless Emergency Alerts are turned ON in phone settings

• Follow The Stanton County Emergency Management Agency on social media

• Maintain multiple ways to receive warnings, including NOAA Weather Radio and local news outlets

Stanton County is working with the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency to determine restoration timelines and evaluate long-term alerting options. Stanton County EMA has also been in meetings this week with Text MyGov© and Hyper-Reach© to determine moving to another vendor and away from CodeRED.

“I have been working closely with our state partners as we continue to monitor this situation. Unfortunately, it appears that a resolution may not occur in the near future. My responsibility is to ensure the safety of residents and visitors in Stanton County, and the inability to utilize all of our emergency alerting tools is a significant concern. Stanton County received access to CodeRED through the State of Nebraska at no cost to the county. Given the current outage, I am actively evaluating several alternative public notification systems to ensure we maintain reliable and redundant alerting capabilities. Earlier today, I received a call from FEMA and the IPAWS Technical Support Team confirming that CodeRED has been shut down, and—out of an abundance of caution—IPAWS has suspended our certificate associated with that platform. They will re-activate our certificate once we move to another platform.”

More information and updates will be posted on our website: www.stantoncountyema.gov