Some municipalities have acquired emergency notification tools in order to notify rapidly the population in disaster situations. In many cases worst case scenarios have been imagined, and multi-channel notification systems assist a local emergency manager in informing the citizen in case of eventual evacuations.
Municipalities often forget, or decide to ignore that these systems should also be used to keep population informed in other situations than earthquakes, nuclear accidents or floods. When we advise our customers, one of the comments given regularly by local authorities is:
“We did not use your alert management system [AlarmTILT], because we did not want to spread panic among the members of the public.”
According to Jeannette Sutton, a disaster sociologist working with the Natural Hazards Center of the University of Colorado, emprirical research has shown that members of the public do not panic, or very rarely, in the context of disaster. They will need as much information as possible to assess their situation, and to be able to take protective measures for themselves and their families. This also explains why, invariably, after a major incident (power outage, water pollution problem, flood) there are so many complaints issued by the public about how poor communication from authorities worked, particularly at local level.
On Friday 23rd January 2009, heavy rains fell over Luxembourg. Around 3pm the situation was dangerous for a municipality using our services, with a risk of floods from nearby river threatening hundreds of homes. The mayor had called his crisis management team, and was receiving first hand information from emergency services (our 112 coordinator) and from the local meteorological centre. They had prepared an evacuation message to the affected people to be broadcast via our solution. A hotline was set up to give hour-by-hour rain and river level information. Outside, first response teams and fire brigades were blocking roads at risk and diverting the traffic. By 5 pm the weather centre declared the rain was about to stop over Luxembourg. River limnimeters showed water levels were regressing. Relieved, the mayor did not issue any message to the public. He did not want to create panic among them.
This is a good example of lost opportunity to communicate intelligently with the population. While a small number of people knew, that there was basically no flood risk, the local population, but also citizens working in an office miles away from home were kept in the dark about the evolution of the events. Outside, roads were still blocked, end of day traffic jams were still on.
In our debriefing meeting, we made following comments: the right thing to do would have been to send emails, SMS or voice calls to the population subscribed to the notification solution informing them, that the worst had been seen, and that there was no flood risk anymore. Also, immediately when set up, the hotline number should have been transmitted (actually, the hotline number was delivered by local TV channels at 8pm, 3 hours after the events, when danger was over!). People at home would have felt safer, although at their doors, emergency services were securing the streets. Members of the public living there, but at work elsewhere, would have been reassured as they would have received the message giving them updated info on the situation. Furthermore, they would have known, that main roads to their municipality were blocked, and could have looked for alternative routes.
Using emergency notification intelligently means a commitment by the local crisis manager to evaluate at all times the pros and cons to deliver an important information to local citizens. In doubt, he/she should always prefer to deliver the message. If it happens the information was incomplete or wrong, he can always rectify later. If not delivered, it is much more difficult to handle properly at later stage. If a big storm is about to hit a community, it is always better to inform the public early enough. If in the end the storm does not come, people won’t mind, if a follow up message is sent as soon as possible to say so. Not sending the information “fearing panic behaviour in the area” will create distrust into the communication system in place, especially if the public is aware that an advanced emergency notification tool is in place. Informing intelligently does not create panic, as Jeannette Sutton puts it correctly, it reduces fear and uncertainty.
A dedicated page to citizen alert can be found on our website here
Wednesday, 30 September 2009
Friday, 18 September 2009
Authorities to Citizen Communication - Using modern technologies intelligently in emergency situations
As a member of the board for TIEMS Benelux (The International Emergency Management Society), I am co organising the 2nd "Oil, Gas and Chemicals Safety and Disaster Management Workshop", that will take place at Hotel Hilton in Antwerp, Belgium, on 25th and 26th September 2009.
Among many interesting workshops, I will have the pleasure to be a co-presenter at a discussion session on how modern technologies can be used to alert population rapidly and efficiently in case of a threat or disaster situation.
For the Netherlands, Mr Willy Steenbakkers, crisiscoordinator NCC, Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, will inform the audience on the latest developments of cell broadcast implementation in his country as a way to notify rapidly thousands by mobile phone in a given area.
For Belgium, Mr Bart Bruelemans, crisis coordinator for the City of Antwerp, will describe how his city has implemented ways to reach the population locally by voice calls in case of emergency situations.
For Luxembourg, I will myself describe how 9 Luxembourg cities (covering 33% of the population) have deployed/are deploying AlarmTILT to manage targetted procedure backed messaging towards their first response staff and the population via email, SMS and voice alerts.
Full program and registration form are available here
Among many interesting workshops, I will have the pleasure to be a co-presenter at a discussion session on how modern technologies can be used to alert population rapidly and efficiently in case of a threat or disaster situation.
For the Netherlands, Mr Willy Steenbakkers, crisiscoordinator NCC, Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, will inform the audience on the latest developments of cell broadcast implementation in his country as a way to notify rapidly thousands by mobile phone in a given area.
For Belgium, Mr Bart Bruelemans, crisis coordinator for the City of Antwerp, will describe how his city has implemented ways to reach the population locally by voice calls in case of emergency situations.
For Luxembourg, I will myself describe how 9 Luxembourg cities (covering 33% of the population) have deployed/are deploying AlarmTILT to manage targetted procedure backed messaging towards their first response staff and the population via email, SMS and voice alerts.
Full program and registration form are available here
Friday, 4 September 2009
Collecting End Users Contact Details for Mass Notification in Disaster Situations
At present, when deploying AlarmTILT to alert the citizens, our concept is based on getting recipients' data by voluntary subscription to the free service (sponsored by the local authorities). We sense that importing large databases of fixed phone numbers would be too intrusive, also we are bound to tight data protection laws. How do people react, that received an alert, without ever having subscribed or accepted to be notified?
At this question, most of my fellow colleagues answered most people don't object to getting a phone call from public safety with messages of import. The messages don't necessarily have to be an "emergency", but if they are important (i.e. a local road will be closed), citizens don't generally object. Yes, there are exceptions, but they don't seem to be widespread. And, growing numbers of citizens are expecting this type of service from government...without having to ask for it.
Major concern, however, comes from the fact that more and more citizens do not own a landline at all, hence the difficulty in reaching them directly via a phone call.
This is why we decided to go the "voluntary subscription" way. Best way to collect the right info around a "person", because at the end of the day, you do not want to call a particular "phone number", but to reach a physical person by any means (think person-centric, not device-centric), ideally even knowing where he/she is located.
In Europe, relunctance in giving personal contact details is very high. Using existing phone databases in France for instance will give you 80% of landline numbers, but only 2% of mobile (cellular) numbers (and no email addresses !).
The future of citizen alert system involving email/SMS/voice/RSS/Instant Messaging/Fax will go via a viral community system (Facebook/Linkedin/Plaxo) style, where citizens will
a) register for free to a multi media alert management system
b) invite friends and family to join in
This system will need to be proactive, i.e. it will "remind" every subscribed citzen once a year (or once a month, depending on acceptance) to update own data (by email/sms/website/Paper Form, etc).
Massive import of old databases are out in my opinion.
Of course, if the legal background is set, the best partners for collecting/identifying/locating people in danger are the telecom operators, as they constantly know what devices are actively connected to their network !
Further information can be found on our dedicated citizen alert page.
At this question, most of my fellow colleagues answered most people don't object to getting a phone call from public safety with messages of import. The messages don't necessarily have to be an "emergency", but if they are important (i.e. a local road will be closed), citizens don't generally object. Yes, there are exceptions, but they don't seem to be widespread. And, growing numbers of citizens are expecting this type of service from government...without having to ask for it.
Major concern, however, comes from the fact that more and more citizens do not own a landline at all, hence the difficulty in reaching them directly via a phone call.
This is why we decided to go the "voluntary subscription" way. Best way to collect the right info around a "person", because at the end of the day, you do not want to call a particular "phone number", but to reach a physical person by any means (think person-centric, not device-centric), ideally even knowing where he/she is located.
In Europe, relunctance in giving personal contact details is very high. Using existing phone databases in France for instance will give you 80% of landline numbers, but only 2% of mobile (cellular) numbers (and no email addresses !).
The future of citizen alert system involving email/SMS/voice/RSS/Instant Messaging/Fax will go via a viral community system (Facebook/Linkedin/Plaxo) style, where citizens will
a) register for free to a multi media alert management system
b) invite friends and family to join in
This system will need to be proactive, i.e. it will "remind" every subscribed citzen once a year (or once a month, depending on acceptance) to update own data (by email/sms/website/Paper Form, etc).
Massive import of old databases are out in my opinion.
Of course, if the legal background is set, the best partners for collecting/identifying/locating people in danger are the telecom operators, as they constantly know what devices are actively connected to their network !
Further information can be found on our dedicated citizen alert page.
Thursday, 3 September 2009
International Safety and Disaster Management Workshop
The members of the board of TIEMS Benelux (The Intl Emergency Management Society) are organising their 2nd "Oil, Gas and Chemicals Safety and Disaster Management Workshop", that will take place at Hotel Hilton in Antwerp, Belgium, on 25th and 26th September 2009.
Who should attend?
Company responders, field supervisors, local authorities, emergency and rescue services, environmental and wildlife organisations, those involved in inland transportation and storage of oil, retail managers, regulatory bodies, HSE managers, specialized response material companies, …
I will myself lead a workshop on the different ways to alert the population in disaster situations. If interested, feel free to join. An updated program with speakers attending the venue, as well as a registration form to the event are available here
The fees for the event start at 200 euros (+ membership fee TIEMS for non members), and include full access to workshops on 25th and disaster simulation exercises on 26th September, plus 2 lunches, coffee, transportation from/to Hotel Hilton to location of disaster simulation, and a pleasant night out in Antwerp on 25th September.
For any further questions, feel free to visit TIEMS website on
www.tiems.org or contact me directly.
Alex Alexandrino
TIEMS Benelux
Member of Board - Treasurer
alex@alexandrino.com
--
Who should attend?
Company responders, field supervisors, local authorities, emergency and rescue services, environmental and wildlife organisations, those involved in inland transportation and storage of oil, retail managers, regulatory bodies, HSE managers, specialized response material companies, …
I will myself lead a workshop on the different ways to alert the population in disaster situations. If interested, feel free to join. An updated program with speakers attending the venue, as well as a registration form to the event are available here
The fees for the event start at 200 euros (+ membership fee TIEMS for non members), and include full access to workshops on 25th and disaster simulation exercises on 26th September, plus 2 lunches, coffee, transportation from/to Hotel Hilton to location of disaster simulation, and a pleasant night out in Antwerp on 25th September.
For any further questions, feel free to visit TIEMS website on
www.tiems.org or contact me directly.
Alex Alexandrino
TIEMS Benelux
Member of Board - Treasurer
alex@alexandrino.com
--
TeamTILT: Outil de convocation gratuit
M-PLIFY lance TeamTILT, le premier « Procedure Backed Messaging Tool » à la portée de Monsieur Tout le Monde
La société M-PLIFY annonce le lancement à l’automne 2009 de TeamTILT, un outil de convocation universel d’un genre nouveau. Bénéficiant de la technologie AlarmTILT (www.alarmtilt.com), logiciel de gestion d’alertes en situations d’urgence et de crise approuvé dans plus de 15 pays du monde par des milliers d’utilisateurs, TeamTILT permet de rapidement inviter, rappeler ou simplement informer collaborateurs, partenaires ou amis par email, SMS ou appel vocal, et de visualiser en temps réel les réponses données par chacun.
De nos jours téléphones portables, Iphones, Blackberry et autres terminaux mobiles permettent à une majorité de rester en contact permanent via les réseaux mobiles, par échange de textos ou par des sites en ligne de type Facebook ou Twitter. Une coordination efficace et rapide des ressources est néanmoins souvent difficile, car les participants ne se trouvent pas nécessairement sur le même réseau de communication, ou ne disposent pas des mêmes types de terminaux.
C’est là qu’entre en jeu AlarmTILT, outil de convocation en situation d’urgence, qui se sert de tous les canaux disponibles pour rappeler, inviter, organiser, synchroniser, prévenir, informer des groupes de personnes, et d’en gérer en temps réel réponses et acquittements.
Aujourd’hui les utilisateurs principaux d’AlarmTILT sont de larges entreprises et organisations multi-sites cherchant à faire des économies de coûts en optimisant leurs procédures d’alertes en cas d’urgence, ou des hôpitaux comme les Hôpitaux Universitaires de Strasbourg qui l’utilisent pour leur gestion de rappels des personnels en cas de plans blancs ou plans rouges. Des gouvernements tels que le gouvernement luxembourgeois l’ont adopté pour pouvoir joindre rapidement les personnes clés en cas de crise. “Efficace, car AlarmTILT fait abstraction de l’endroit où se trouve une personne et des moyens de communication à sa disposition,” précise Carlo Simon, Directeur du Centre de Communications du Gouvernement luxembourgeois.
TeamTILT, une version gratuite d’AlarmTILT, sera disponible dès le 1er octobre 2009. Grâce à TeamTILT, l’entraineur de l’équipe sportive locale peut rapidement informer ses joueurs d’une annulation de match de dernière minute, l’organisateur d’un événement peut rapidement convoquer les participants juste avant une réunion, et les responsables d’une école préviennent rapidement collègues et parents d’élèves lors d’incidents les affectant directement.
TeamTILT ne nécessite aucun téléchargement de logiciel. Le déclenchement des procédures d’appels se fait par navigateur web ou à partir d’un téléphone. TeamTILT gère l’envoi d’emails, SMS et appels vocaux sur PC, téléphones portables et fixes, PDA/Smartphone, Blackberry, Iphone et autres, et affiche à l’opérateur en temps réel les réponses et acquittements des personnes concernées.
TeamTILT sera opérationnel à partir du 1er octobre 2009, mais dès à présent une version Beta est disponible en s’inscrivant gratuitement sur le site www.alarmtilt.com/v5 .
Pour de plus amples informations, ou pour une interview, prière contacter directement Alex Alexandrino au +352 261846 121 ou a.alexandrino@m-plify.com .
A propos de TeamTILT: www.alarmtilt.com/v5
A propos d’ AlarmTILT: www.alarmtilt.com
A propos de M-PLIFY: www.m-plify.com
La société M-PLIFY annonce le lancement à l’automne 2009 de TeamTILT, un outil de convocation universel d’un genre nouveau. Bénéficiant de la technologie AlarmTILT (www.alarmtilt.com), logiciel de gestion d’alertes en situations d’urgence et de crise approuvé dans plus de 15 pays du monde par des milliers d’utilisateurs, TeamTILT permet de rapidement inviter, rappeler ou simplement informer collaborateurs, partenaires ou amis par email, SMS ou appel vocal, et de visualiser en temps réel les réponses données par chacun.
De nos jours téléphones portables, Iphones, Blackberry et autres terminaux mobiles permettent à une majorité de rester en contact permanent via les réseaux mobiles, par échange de textos ou par des sites en ligne de type Facebook ou Twitter. Une coordination efficace et rapide des ressources est néanmoins souvent difficile, car les participants ne se trouvent pas nécessairement sur le même réseau de communication, ou ne disposent pas des mêmes types de terminaux.
C’est là qu’entre en jeu AlarmTILT, outil de convocation en situation d’urgence, qui se sert de tous les canaux disponibles pour rappeler, inviter, organiser, synchroniser, prévenir, informer des groupes de personnes, et d’en gérer en temps réel réponses et acquittements.
Aujourd’hui les utilisateurs principaux d’AlarmTILT sont de larges entreprises et organisations multi-sites cherchant à faire des économies de coûts en optimisant leurs procédures d’alertes en cas d’urgence, ou des hôpitaux comme les Hôpitaux Universitaires de Strasbourg qui l’utilisent pour leur gestion de rappels des personnels en cas de plans blancs ou plans rouges. Des gouvernements tels que le gouvernement luxembourgeois l’ont adopté pour pouvoir joindre rapidement les personnes clés en cas de crise. “Efficace, car AlarmTILT fait abstraction de l’endroit où se trouve une personne et des moyens de communication à sa disposition,” précise Carlo Simon, Directeur du Centre de Communications du Gouvernement luxembourgeois.
TeamTILT, une version gratuite d’AlarmTILT, sera disponible dès le 1er octobre 2009. Grâce à TeamTILT, l’entraineur de l’équipe sportive locale peut rapidement informer ses joueurs d’une annulation de match de dernière minute, l’organisateur d’un événement peut rapidement convoquer les participants juste avant une réunion, et les responsables d’une école préviennent rapidement collègues et parents d’élèves lors d’incidents les affectant directement.
TeamTILT ne nécessite aucun téléchargement de logiciel. Le déclenchement des procédures d’appels se fait par navigateur web ou à partir d’un téléphone. TeamTILT gère l’envoi d’emails, SMS et appels vocaux sur PC, téléphones portables et fixes, PDA/Smartphone, Blackberry, Iphone et autres, et affiche à l’opérateur en temps réel les réponses et acquittements des personnes concernées.
TeamTILT sera opérationnel à partir du 1er octobre 2009, mais dès à présent une version Beta est disponible en s’inscrivant gratuitement sur le site www.alarmtilt.com/v5 .
Pour de plus amples informations, ou pour une interview, prière contacter directement Alex Alexandrino au +352 261846 121 ou a.alexandrino@m-plify.com .
A propos de TeamTILT: www.alarmtilt.com/v5
A propos d’ AlarmTILT: www.alarmtilt.com
A propos de M-PLIFY: www.m-plify.com
Emergency Communication Top Features – Two-Way Communication
Today most alert solutions are uni-directional. They do not take in consideration valuable information, that participants might give.
The philosophy of a unified alert management solution, like for instance AlarmTILT (www.alarmtilt.com) is to reach key people in the shortest time possible by any means available, but also to permit action taking according to the replies given by the actors on the field. A reply to an email, a reply to an SMS, a reply to a voice alert, a reply to an instant message, these are key functionalities. They are the base to many other alert functionalities, such as:
- Escalation procedures
notify single destinations or groups by email, SMS and voice alert in predefined steps according to organisation rules. Alert will escalate to following step in case of no reply, until first participant acknowledges alert by replying directly to it. Reply will stop escalation.
- Availability check
Two-way messaging allows to monitor who is available during an incident or emergency. This is particularly important, if you are notifying 100 people, but only 20 are needed for intervention. Once 20 have acknowledged ( by direct reply ) they are available, the incident will close automatically. The other 80 participants will be informed automatically their presence is not needed.
- Horizontal communication
During an alert procedure involving several participants, the replies should allow to inform everyone of who is intervening, avoiding the hassle of having to call colleagues in order to find out who is taking on the intervention
- Interactivity
During alert procedures launched and supervised by an operator, receiving explicit replies will allow him to efficiently manage the emergency, and to send additional information to selected groups.
- Intervention speed check
All intervention details being logged, an analysis of the time of replies and their content give valuable information to management during incident auditing and procedures improvement projects.
The philosophy of a unified alert management solution, like for instance AlarmTILT (www.alarmtilt.com) is to reach key people in the shortest time possible by any means available, but also to permit action taking according to the replies given by the actors on the field. A reply to an email, a reply to an SMS, a reply to a voice alert, a reply to an instant message, these are key functionalities. They are the base to many other alert functionalities, such as:
- Escalation procedures
notify single destinations or groups by email, SMS and voice alert in predefined steps according to organisation rules. Alert will escalate to following step in case of no reply, until first participant acknowledges alert by replying directly to it. Reply will stop escalation.
- Availability check
Two-way messaging allows to monitor who is available during an incident or emergency. This is particularly important, if you are notifying 100 people, but only 20 are needed for intervention. Once 20 have acknowledged ( by direct reply ) they are available, the incident will close automatically. The other 80 participants will be informed automatically their presence is not needed.
- Horizontal communication
During an alert procedure involving several participants, the replies should allow to inform everyone of who is intervening, avoiding the hassle of having to call colleagues in order to find out who is taking on the intervention
- Interactivity
During alert procedures launched and supervised by an operator, receiving explicit replies will allow him to efficiently manage the emergency, and to send additional information to selected groups.
- Intervention speed check
All intervention details being logged, an analysis of the time of replies and their content give valuable information to management during incident auditing and procedures improvement projects.
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