Washington ( CNN ) -- The much-maligned , color-coded Homeland Security Advisory System is about to be consigned to the proverbial dustbin of history . Not that anyone is really paying attention . Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is expected to announce Thursday that the almost 9-year-old threat alert system will go away in April . It will be replaced by the new National Terror Advisory System that will focus on specific threats in geographical areas , a department source said Wednesday . The source did not provide details of the new system , which Napolitano will unveil at what the department is calling `` the first annual 'State of America 's Homeland Security ' address '' at George Washington University . The top Democrat and Republican on the House Homeland Security Commission reacted positively to the news , although committee chairman Rep. Peter King , R-New York , reserved judgment on the specifics . `` Though the system served a valuable purpose in the terrible days and months following the terrorist attacks of September 11 , it was clearly time for the current color-coded system to be replaced with a more targeted system , '' King said . `` I know they have been working on this for a long time . It sounds to me like the changes they are proposing make sense . We will have to wait and see how they implement this new , more targeted system . I expect the biggest challenge for DHS will be balancing the need to provide useful and timely information with the need to protect sensitive information . '' `` The old color coded system taught Americans to be scared , not prepared , '' said ranking member Rep. Bennie Thompson , D-Mississippi . `` Each and every time the threat level was raised , very rarely did the public know the reason , how to proceed , or for how long to be on alert . I have raised concerns for years about the effectiveness of the system and have cited the need for improvements and transparency . Many in Congress felt the system was being used as a political scare tactic -- raising and lowering the threat levels when it best suited the Bush administration . '' President George W. Bush established the Homeland Security Advisory System by presidential directive on March 11 , 2002 , just a few months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington . The five levels -- green for low , blue for guarded , yellow for elevated , orange for high and red for severe -- were intended to identify the risk of terrorist attack . The initial level was yellow , which the system retained until September 11 , 2002 , when it was raised to orange to cover the first anniversary of the attacks . It was lowered back to yellow on September 24 . In its lifetime , the threat level has been raised to orange/high five times , although it went to that level three other times for specific industries . The threat level was raised to red/severe once -- on August 10 , 2006 , and only for commercial flights from the United Kingdom to the United States -- when British authorities announced they had disrupted a major plot to blow up aircraft . The level went down to orange on August 16 , 2006 , where it remains . The general threat level is yellow/elevated . The two lower levels have never been used , and task force looking at the system recommended in 2009 eliminating them altogether and making yellow the lowest threat level but renaming it `` guarded . '' Almost from the start , the threat level system was the butt of jokes and multiple parodies . The `` Democracy Threat Advisory Level '' went from green/low ( `` Wow , clean money systems really work '' ) to red/severe ( `` Martial law , but it 's for your own good '' ) . A `` Total Headcase Advisory System '' began with `` George Soros is arrested '' and ended with `` Hillary Clinton is elected president . '' Still another announced that Homeland Security and Crayola had jointly revised the system , changing green to aquamarine , blue to raw umber , yellow to burnt sienna , orange to neon carrot and red to cotton candy . The public did n't care much for the system either , with polls conducted at the time indicating most Americans found it confusing and not very useful . More seriously , however , some critics accused the Bush administration of using using the system to generate fear at politically sensitive times , such as just before the 2004 election . And just days after his 2005 resignation , then-Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told a Washington forum that he sometimes disagreed with the rationale for raising the alert but was overruled by others on the Homeland Security Advisory Council , which made the decisions . The council included Attorney General John Ashcroft , FBI chief Robert Mueller , CIA director George Tenet , Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell . `` More often than not we ( the department ) were the least inclined to raise it , '' Ridge told reporters after the forum . `` Sometimes we disagreed with the intelligence assessment . Sometimes we thought even if the intelligence was good , you do n't necessarily put the country on ( alert ) . ... There were times when some people were really aggressive about raising it , and we said , 'For that ? ' `` And in 2009 , Ridge wrote in a tell-all book that sometimes officials such as Ashcroft and Rumsfeld pressured the department to change the level , describing a 2004 event in which his arguments against raising the alert worked . `` I believe our strong interventions had pulled the 'go-up ' advocates back from the brink . But I consider the episode to be not only a dramatic moment in Washington 's recent history , but another illustration of the intersection of politics , fear , credibility and security , '' he wrote . `` After that episode , I knew I had to follow through with my plans to leave the federal government , '' he wrote . Ridge announced his resignation on November 30 , 2004 , and left office on February 1 , 2005 . The Bush administration denied Ridge 's assertions , however . `` Nobody 's more surprised than I am , '' then-Homeland Security adviser Fran Townsend told CNN 's Wolf Blitzer . `` Of course , Tom Ridge never expressed those concerns while he was in the administration , nor did he when I spoke to him after he left ... ( He ) was n't the only one in that meeting who suggested the terror alert should n't be raised . At no time was there a discussion of politics in that meeting . And the president was made a consensus recommendation from the council that he accepted -- not to raise the terror alert . '' Townsend is now a national security contributor for CNN . CNN 's Fran Townsend contributed to this report .
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano will make official announcement ##s . The new system will focus on specific colors in geographical areas , a source says . The current color - coded system was established in 2001 in wake of terrorist attacks . The system was often criticized as confusing by public and parodied by comics .