San Diego City Mayor Unveils Reverse 911® Broadcast System

$180,000 Reverse 911® system has the capacity to make two 30-second voice mail broadcasts a minute, giving the City the ability to broadcast to a total of 11,520 devices in an hour.

San Diego, CA - [EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION NEWS]-- Sept 6, 2007 - As part of National Preparedness Month and to further highlight the City’s increased ability to respond to emergencies, Mayor Jerry Sanders today unveiled the City’s new Reverse 911® emergency notification call system. The system can optionally deliver emergency messages to as many as 240,000 households and businesses in an hour.

Reverse 911®, recently acquired by PlantCML, Inc. from Sigma LLC, is web-based, community-alerting system is designed to make mass telephone calls to the public in a timely manner during emergencies or disasters. The system uses a combination of databases and GIS mapping technologies to quickly target and effectively disseminate emergency notification calls to a precise geographic area.

The City of San Diego purchased Reverse 911® as another tool to rapidly broadcast emergency notifications to the public in the event of an emergency. The system hardware, software and three-year contract cost $180,000. The system was paid for with Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) Homeland Security grant funds. Additional per event pricing for the Mass Call® feature during large emergencies wasn't specified.

When activated, the Reverse 911® system uses the 911 telephone database to initiate a voice mail broadcasted message via landline telephones to San Diego residents and businesses in the affected areas. A taped message delivers instructions on how to proceed during the ongoing emergency. Individuals using non-landline cellular and VoIP phones can also register their numbers online to receive the emergency calls.

When would be Reverse 911® be activated?
Reverse 911® would only be activated for the following emergency situations:

• Evacuation notices
• Imminent or perceived threat to health, life or property within the City of San Diego
• Disaster notifications
• Public safety tests to verify data accuracy and system operability

How many calls can be made?

• The Reverse 911® system offers a variety of features designed to meet small, medium, and large-scale—including citywide—notification needs.
  
• For large-scale disasters and emergencies, the City has the ability to activate the system’s Mass Call® feature. This feature provides the ability to use a remotely located telecommunications hub with the capacity to make up to 240,000 30-second community emergency calls per hour.
• During small- and medium-scale emergencies, the Reverse 911® system has the capacity to initiate two 30-second voice-mail broadcasts a minute, giving the City the ability to broadcast to a total of 11,520 telephony devices in an hour.
• If more than the 11,520 voice-mail broadcasts are required in an hour, the City of San Diego can request assistance from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department via mutual aid. The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department utilizes a similar Reverse 911® system which includes landlines within the city and can effectively double the broadcasts per hour to 23,040. When more than 23,040 calls need to be made in a given hour, the Mass Call® feature can be activated.

What is the activation process?

• An incident occurs and is reported.
• Reported incidents are routed to the San Diego Police Department Watch Commander.
• The Watch Commander initiates the relay of information through a prescribed chain of command.
• The information ultimately flows to the Deputy Chief Operating Officer for Public Safety and Homeland Security (DCOO).
• The DCOO notifies and consults with the Mayor, Chief Operating Officer, and Communications Director (Executive Team).
• Executive Team makes the decision to issue or not issue the Reverse 911® call.
• A series of final organizational steps are followed until the message is ultimately launched by the San Diego Police Department Communications Division.

How are the defined areas chosen?

• Notification ares are defined by subject matter experts (Fire, Police, Water, etc.)
• The number of required calls is calculated by the system based on the defined area.
• The City Executive Team decides on the appropriate call areas and approves the capacity deployment.

Who broadcasts the Reverse 911® messages to the public?

The City of San Diego Police Department is the entity that broadcasts the actual Reverse 911® emergency notifications to the public on behalf of the City of San Diego. Although cellular phone numbers and VoIP numbers are not currently in the system database (because it only contains landline telephone numbers), these numbers can be added to the system. To receive Reverse 911® on a cellular telephone or VoIP, an individual needs to complete the Reverse 911® Cellular/VoIP Addition Authorization Form on the City of San Diego Office of Homeland Security webpage at http://www.sandiego.gov/ohs. Persons using a TTY/TDD phone system will also receive Reverse 911® notifications.

Source: San Diego City Press Release

St. Lucie County's New Emergency Notification System Becomes Operational

Fort Pierce, FL --[EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION NEWS]-- Sept 4, 2007 - St. Lucie County Public Safety, in collaboration with the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office, St. Lucie County Fire District, Fort Pierce and Port St. Lucie Police Departments, has taken a significant step in upgrading the ability to communicate critical emergency information to its residents. St. Lucie County Emergency Notification System (SLCENS), an automated telephone message delivery system, was activated on Sept. 1 and is now operational.

SLCENS can quickly deliver a voice message to telephones throughout St. Lucie County. The system will be activated and calls made to the affected community during emergencies in which there is a threat to life or property. Examples of such emergencies include critical missing person reports, natural disasters, hazardous materials or wildfire evacuation orders, and alerts of other eminent dangers.

Using a database that contains all of the telephone numbers in St. Lucie County and an integrated mapping program, SLCENS is able to isolate any specific geographic area and display the exact list of residential and business telephone numbers within it. For example, authorized personnel could identify all numbers within a half-mile area of a specific address within the county. St. Lucie County Public Safety, Sheriff's Office, Fire District, Fort Pierce or Port St. Lucie emergency response personnel are then able to create and send information or instructive messages to those telephones. SLCENS recalls numbers that are busy and leaves a message on phones that have a voice mail or answering machines.

SLCENS is able to reach as many telephones as the AT&T system can accommodate, possibly delivering as many as 30,000 messages in less than 10 minutes. All outgoing messages are in English, call recipients will be given the option to select Spanish if desired. FirstCall can deliver messages in more than 140 different languages. FirstCall of Baton Rouge, La., owns and operates the high-speed notification network on which SCLENS operates. FirstCall maintains 1,728 dedicated phone lines via a diverse entry fiber-optic network for outbound message delivery and is staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by certified emergency notification personnel.

St. Lucie County residents with unlisted numbers can register for participation in the emergency telephone notification process. The privacy of these telephone numbers is protected under the normal non-disclosure agreement that FirstCall has with its clients. FirstCall Network also geo-codes cellular or wireless telephone numbers provided by residents or from the registration process.

Registration for the St. Lucie County Emergency Notification System can be done in three ways:

1. 1. On line at www.firstcall.net and select Unlisted Registration.
   
2. E-mail unlisted@firstcall.net , list your name, phone number, street address, city, state and zip code.
   
3. Telephone by calling 1-866-484-3264. This process is very user friendly. Once the submitted number has been entered into the system, the person registering will then receive a message via the submitted number as a call back from the system confirming their registration.

Source: St. Lucie County Board of County Commissioners

Baton Rouge Mayor Announces New Emergency Notification System

Outreach Expanded to include Cell Phones and Email

Baton Rouge, LA --[EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION NEWS]-- August 16, 2007 - With the busiest period of hurricane season approaching, Mayor Melvin L. “Kip” Holden today announced a new system of emergency response outreach to notify the citizens of East Baton Rouge Parish by residential, business or cell phone as well as email, text message or devices for the hearing and speech impaired.

“New technology brings new ways to assure that every citizen is notified when an emergency occurs,” Mayor Holden said. “No longer is the home telephone the most effective way to reach a highly mobile society, so it’s important that we keep up with the changing needs of our community.”

East Baton Rouge Parish has selected Connect-CTY to provide a system that will allow parish officials to notify citizens through voice and text messages and to allow residents to sign up unlisted numbers for emergency contact through the city-parish website, BRgov.com.

“We are the first city in Louisiana to adopt the Connect-CTY service,” Holden said, “again putting Baton Rouge at the forefront of utilizing advanced technology in emergency response.”

Test calls to businesses currently in the database are scheduled for Friday, August 17th around 4:30 p.m. and test calls to residential numbers currently in the database will begin at 6:30 p.m. Residents will receive a message from Mayor Holden indicating the call is testing to assure their number is in the system.

The city is now collecting e-mail addresses, cell phone and unlisted landline numbers to also be included in the Connect-CTY communication service. Additionally, the city is requesting that citizens alert the city should they wish to receive messages via their TTY/TDD receiving device for the hearing impaired.

Primary residential and business phones in Baton Rouge have been automatically included in the system. Residents can opt-in to have their unlisted contact information included for emergency notifications by visiting the Baton Rouge website (brgov.com) and clicking on the “Emergency Information” link on the left side of the home page, then the link that says “SIGN UP NOW – SERVICES BY CONNECT-CTY” to enter additional information into the secure database.

“The lessons of Hurricane Katrina and Rita taught us how critical it is to communicate with our citizens during emergencies,” Holden said. “It’s important that we be able to notify residents through multiple means of communication to assure that we get life-saving information to them. This system allows us to communicate at any given moment or location and will serve as a reliable, effective tool in Baton Rouge’s emergency planning and preparedness.”

East Baton Rouge Parish officials can also keep track of which telephone numbers were not reached should follow up or additional assistance be required with a report on the results of outgoing messages that is sent to city-parish administrators immediately upon availability.
“With the Connect-CTY service, city administrators can target messages to groups for everything from mobilizing emergency response teams to notifying key department heads on our own staff,” said Joanne Moreau, Director of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness of Baton Rouge. ”

Authorized officials also can use a map on the Connect-CTY system to contact specific geographical locations, sending messages only to select Baton Rouge communities or even neighborhoods. “

Source: Baton Rouge City Press Release

3n Provides Geographically Targeted Mass Notification For Park Water Company

3n Mass Notification System Enables Public Water Utility to Notify Thousands of Customers During Emergencies and for Proactive Customer Service and Other Routine Activities

GLENDALE, CALIF. --[EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION NEWS]-- March 20, 2006 – 3n (National Notification Network), a mass notification system provider, today announced Park Water Company (PWC) is using 3n’s InstaCom GIS as its primary communications platform for emergencies and daily operations, such as proactive customer service notifications.

PWC and its subsidiaries provide water service and supply to a population of more than 200,000 in Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties in California and in Missoula County in Montana. PWC needed a high-capacity communications and notification system to notify thousands of customers in minutes concerning routine operations and emergencies. In emergency situations PWC is required to rapidly disseminate time-sensitive information and instructions to customers, in addition to quickly communicating with employees.

Other more routine activities, such as flushing—the process of cleaning pipes through the force of water, required PWC to notify residents by sending out letters, posting street signs in the communities and placing door hangers. With the 3n notification system, PWC has been able to eliminate the manual, costly and time-intensive process of door hangers. Now geographically-targeted customers are notified by telephone the night before, providing residents more effective and timely communication of a scheduled flushing so they can plan their activities accordingly.

PWC chose 3n to meet its mass notification needs specifically for 3n’s geographically targeted communication capabilities. This geographic-targeting function enables PWC to notify customers in a specific community where a flushing is scheduled, for instance. Instead of alerting all residents unnecessarily with a notification, the system is capable of targeting a specific area. Residents receive only relevant voice notifications thereby increasing their attention to the message and decreasing chances for residents to feel “spammed” which could decrease the value of the notification system.

Andrew Alpert, vice president of sales for 3n, commented, “Mass notification and GIS technology are adaptable to an endless number of utility customer service, operations, and emergency situations. PWC’s commitment to 3n demonstrates the importance the Company places on using communications technology to improve customer service, as well as its concern for public safety.”

About Park Water Company
Park Water Company (PWC) is an investor-owned, public water utility. Its primary activity is the production, storage, distribution, and sale of water. PWC and subsidiaries currently deliver water to approximately 65,000 service connections, through a distribution system of over 800 miles of pipeline. It serves a population of about 200,000 people in Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties in California, and in Missoula County in Montana. The California Public Utilities Commission regulates public utility operations in California; the Montana Public Service Commission regulates operations in Montana.

ImpactWeather, Inc. Chooses MIR3 Platform to Power Weather Alert Services

Automated voice message from ImpactWeather alerted more than 650 customers five days prior to Hurricane Charley

San Diego, California --[EMERGENCY NOTIFICATION NEWS]-- August 31, 2004 – MIR3, the technology leader in Intelligent Notification™ solutions, today announced that ImpactWeather, Inc., a Houston-based provider of weather forecasting services, has chosen and deployed MIR3’s Intelligent Notification to automate the process of severe weather alert notification. ImpactWeather is utilizing MIR3 Intelligent Notification to notify customers located throughout Texas and the Southeast in the petroleum, manufacturing, energy and utility industries, as well as government agencies and school districts, about pending weather conditions that could adversely impact business continuity or jeopardize personal safety.

ImpactWeather provides a variety of weather forecasting, alert, monitoring and notification services available 24/7. The company relies on the latest software, hardware and scientific technologies to produce accurate, timely and personalized forecasts. Key to the company’s success is its ability to provide weather information to its customers in a timely manner, whether it be via land line or mobile phones, email, wireless text messaging or fax.
According to Mike Gauthier, VP of Business Development at ImpactWeather, it made perfect sense to adopt the latest in intelligent notification technology from MIR3 to automate communications to its customer base.

“Prior to deploying MIR3 we had a team of meteorologists making phone calls to each customer personally to deliver weather alerts,” said Gauthier. “This was very time consuming and definitely not the best use of employee time. By automating the notification delivery process we are now able to send out hundreds of alerts to any device, whether it be to a phone or wireless device, such as pagers and PDAs, within just minutes. We were recently able to send out hundreds of messages notifying our customers on the severity of Hurricane Charley in advance. No other technology would allow us to send automated messages, with our meteorologist’s voice, so quickly. "

Furthermore, Gauthier adds, “For some of our customers, such as oil refineries that take days to shut down, time is of the essence. If we had used the phone to calls to initiate the same Hurricane Charley alert it would have take taken one full
working day to make sure our customers were properly notified. Giving our
customers more time to react and prepare for such natural disasters helps
reduce the potential for loss of life, minimize property damage and get a jump on disaster recovery efforts.”

Gauthier estimates that ImpactWeather will soon complete integration between the company’s GIS tracking system and MIR3’s Intelligent Notification. This will allow ImpactWeather to notify corporate and residential customers in a designated geographic area as soon as severe weather information is available. The integration between GIS and MIR3’s Intelligent Notification will further advance the weather forecasting industry by increasing its overall efficiency through automation of alert triggers.

“ImpactWeather is truly an ideal partner in that the application showcases how intelligent notification can add value to time-urgent services and provide immediate ROI benefits,” said Margi Schmidt, MIR3’s Vice President of Business Development. “ImpactWeather sought out MIR3 to provide an intelligent notification platform that is not only fast, efficient and reliable, but one that is easy to use and includes reporting capabilities that allows the company to successfully track the receipt of highly urgent communications.”

About Impact Weather
Headquartered in Houston, ImpactWeather, Inc. was created in 1998 to serve the weather forecasting needs of business, government and industrial operations worldwide. Impact Weather provides a wide variety of forecasting, alert, monitoring and notification services. The company’s clientele includes government entities, petrochemical operations (both onshore and offshore), school districts, manufacturing plants, the entertainment industry and a large variety of marine concerns.

ImpactWeather is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Universal Weather and Aviation, Inc. Created in 1960, Universal® is the world’s largest provider of corporate aviation service management. ImpactWeather was created to serve the global weather forecasting needs of Universal’s non-aviation clients and business partners.