911 ResponsAbility

Emergency Notification and the Cell Phone

Hate to say "I told ya' so" - but I did.

I saw a news article this morning about how some people in Eugene, OR did not receive a call from the county's emergency notification system about a tense situation on the streets outside their homes because the calls only went to land lines - not cell phones, and (despite them not mentioning this in the article) not VoIP phones either (e.g., Vonage).

Land lines are disappearing rapidly and there is currently no way for emergency notification systems to send messages to anything BUT land lines...unless of course residences and businesses are provided with a method of "opting in" to receive alerts by providing their community with their cell or VoIP phone number. And some communities do this, like the University of Oregon campus as mentioned in the video portion of the article I mention above.

But that solution has it's challenges, too. First of all, you have to educate people about the ability to register their other phone numbers. Then, what happens if/when they change their number and that number is reassigned to someone else who doesn't live in the same area? You have to assume that the registrant is going to forget they  registered and thus forget to un-register. So now you have a bunch of bogus numbers you are trying to notify that clog a taxed cellular network even further. And based on various studies I have seen, chances are the messages won't get delivered to most of the cell phones anyway...

And just because my mobile phone is now associated with the location of my house, I could easily be somewhere else when a situation arises. Not that I wouldn't want to be notified that something was happening in my backyard...in fact, it might be helpful to know that there is a guy with a gun running around my neighborhood even if I am not home. Perhaps I am on my way home, and thus need to know that it's probably not a good idea for me to turn into my subdivision. If the EN system only calls my house line, I'm not going to know about it until I get home. This, in fact, happened to me last year.

And this brings up another point about location. I may be interested in receiving alerts about emergency incidents in more locations than just where my house is located. I want to know if something critical is going on around my child's school, my elderly aunt's home, my workplace, my route to work, etc. Now you're talking about needing a very complex system that can manage multiple phone numbers associated with multiple locations that I doubt taxpayers will want to pay for since they already gripe about fees for basic 9-1-1 service.

Regretfully, I don't have a solution. But it does bother me slightly every time I hear about some town purchasing an emergency notification system.

Emergency Notification and the Cell Phone

Hate to say "I told ya' so" - but I did.

I saw a news article this morning about how some people in Eugene, OR did not receive a call from the county's emergency notification system about a tense situation on the streets outside their homes because the calls only went to land lines - not cell phones, and (despite them not mentioning this in the article) not VoIP phones either (e.g., Vonage).

Land lines are disappearing rapidly and there is currently no way for emergency notification systems to send messages to anything BUT land lines...unless of course residences and businesses are provided with a method of "opting in" to receive alerts by providing their community with their cell or VoIP phone number. And some communities do this, like the University of Oregon campus as mentioned in the video portion of the article I mention above.

But that solution has it's challenges, too. First of all, you have to educate people about the ability to register their other phone numbers. Then, what happens if/when they change their number and that number is reassigned to someone else who doesn't live in the same area? You have to assume that the registrant is going to forget they  registered and thus forget to un-register. So now you have a bunch of bogus numbers you are trying to notify that clog a taxed cellular network even further. And based on various studies I have seen, chances are the messages won't get delivered to most of the cell phones anyway...

And just because my mobile phone is now associated with the location of my house, I could easily be somewhere else when a situation arises. Not that I wouldn't want to be notified that something was happening in my backyard...in fact, it might be helpful to know that there is a guy with a gun running around my neighborhood even if I am not home. Perhaps I am on my way home, and thus need to know that it's probably not a good idea for me to turn into my subdivision. If the EN system only calls my house line, I'm not going to know about it until I get home. This, in fact, happened to me last year.

And this brings up another point about location. I may be interested in receiving alerts about emergency incidents in more locations than just where my house is located. I want to know if something critical is going on around my child's school, my elderly aunt's home, my workplace, my route to work, etc. Now you're talking about needing a very complex system that can manage multiple phone numbers associated with multiple locations that I doubt taxpayers will want to pay for since they already gripe about fees for basic 9-1-1 service.

Regretfully, I don't have a solution. But it does bother me slightly every time I hear about some town purchasing an emergency notification system.

Emergency Notification Systems Are Not the Answer at Universities

The results of the Virginia Tech shooting investigation were released today and the underlying theme of the report is that the Faculty is responsible and accountable to communicate faster. I'm not trying to say that emergency notification systems don't have their place. But getting the actual message out is the easy part. Figuring out what to say is a lot harder...and that is where MissionMode comes in.

From an AP article on the story published August 30 titled Va. Tech president defends himself:

"It took administrators more than two hours to get the first e-mail warning out after Cho killed two people in a dormitory. In the interim, Cho mailed off a video confession to NBC and then made his way across the Blacksburg campus to a classroom building, where he killed 30 more victims and committed suicide.

...during those two hours, administrators carefully considered how to deal with the first burst of gunfire, including a warning or a complete campus lockdown...

At the time, however, only two administrators had the ability to send campus-wide e-mail, and the message first had to be formulated by the Policy Group, a body that includes nine vice presidents and several vice provosts and is chaired by Steger. It took a half-hour just to assemble the group."

There isn't a more appropriate scenario I could come up with as an argument for the need for MissionMode.

1. MissionMode's emergency notification feature can send an alert to all team members via their phone, email, cell, pager, etc within seconds. Team members manage schedule by time of day, and day of week.
2. Team members can then log in to an online situation center where they can communicate and collaborate no matter where they are located.
3. Pre-defined situation templates ensure that the most up to date information related to your response plans and SOPs are available at everyone's fingertips and not sitting on a desk miles away, or clogging your email server as you try to email them to everyone.
4. Task assignments can be automatically triggered and responsible parties can give task status can be updated for all team members to see.

The sooner you can get to work on a situation, the quicker you can react, take action, and save lives. MissionMode can help.

Problems with Planning and Preparing for Emergencies in Schools

Seems like there is no end to the problem of school safety. I just came across this article on CNN.com.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/05/17/school.safety.ap/index.html

    ...according to an analysis by the congressional Government Accountability     Office. For example:

• About half of school districts don’t have plans for continuing to educate students in the event of a lengthy school closure.
• School districts generally are not working with first responders or other community officials on how to implement emergency plans.
• Twenty-eight percent of school districts with emergency plans do not have specific provisions for evacuating student with disabilities in an emergency.
• Two-thirds of districts reported a lack of expertise and equipment, such as two-way radios and adequate locks for school building, as impediments to emergency planning.

InterAct pushes for schools to integrate with their local police and other emergency officials. This is the best way to ensure the best response possible if their is a breach in a school’s security plan. We continue to see a need for schools to be able to integrate technologies together to keep their schools safe.

At InterAct we have come up with solutions to link intelligent video surveillance (TrueSentry) to a the systems at the local 9-1-1 center, allowing dispatchers and first responders to be aware of what situation is going on before they even arrive on scene. In a previous blog, we talk about how to use emergency notification (MissionMode) to get alerts out to other officials who need to know about a situation that is going on.

Of course there is will be no end to see articles on how our schools aren’t as safe as we hope, but InterAct makes sure the solutions are out there for them to do it. For more on InterAct schools safety, visit http://www.interact911.com/industry__solutions/private__sector/education/index.htm

Emergency Response Legislation for Colleges & Universities

Just saw an interesting  article about some national legislation that has recently been presented on the floor about emergency notification at colleges & universities.

http://www.campussafetymagazine.com/News/?newsID=1080

U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced legislation on April 26 to strengthen the safety and security of college and university campuses. The Campus Law Enforcement Emergency Response Act of 2007 will ensure that all colleges and universities develop emergency response procedures and campus notification systems, and test them on at least an annual basis.

The legislation would require colleges and universities to do the following:

• Develop and distribute policies for responding to law enforcement emergencies, including procedures for notifying students and employees about such emergencies. The term "law enforcement emergency" would include situations that occur on a college campus, that involve a law enforcement response and that pose a potential threat of continuing danger;
• Report on statistics concerning the occurrence of such emergencies;
• Test their law enforcement emergency response procedures at least annually; and
• Provide notification to the campus community no later than 30 minutes after the discovery of a law enforcement emergency situation.

What is extremely interesting about this legislation is the time limit they have on the amount of time the school has to send out the alert after an incident. Actually getting a mass alert out is the easy part. Emergency alert systems are a dime a dozen. MissionMode does it as well as anyone via voice and text to phone, fax, email and SMS.

However, the hard part noted here is complying with that 30-minute window. How will you get a hold of all the decision makers, get them up to speed, and quickly make the decision of what exactly you are going to say in that alert? That is the key, and the MissionMode crisis management system is exactly what you need to accomplish it with an online command center where team members can access emergency response plans, get up to speed quickly on the current situation, and collaborate on the action to take.

Learn more by visiting the MissionMode product site at http://www.missionmode.com/products/index.htm. Call Steven Daukas at InterAct Public Safety Systems today to schedule a demo at 336-201-5078.

Learning from History

Our resident expert on school safety and security, Don Fraser, just sent me the following link to a New York Times article from May 19, 1927.

MANIAC BLOWS UP SCHOOL, KILLS 42, MOSTLY CHILDREN; HAD PROTESTED HIGH TAXES; 33 PUPILS AMONG VICTIMS

It brings to mind the quote by philosopher and poet, George Santayana, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Before Columbine, the thought of a tragedy of this magnitude seemed to be impossible. We collectively forgot about this unthinkable, horrific act in Michigan, and so here we are 80 years later, with 32 more lives cut short.

We can not - must not - forget. The real tragedy will be if in another 80 years, we still have not done anything to improve the safety and security of our schools to protect our children. The technology exists to help detect and prevent incidents, but help is needed on the federal level to fund the initiatives.

Pushing the Limits of School Security

Amazing that school security has come to something as extreme as this…

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061010/ap_on_go_pr_wh/school_safety

But I wonder how far we are from this set up becoming the standard. While this school is really pushing school security to the limit, most do not have the kind of budget necessary to install and maintain this level of systems.

More economical safety precautions that many schools are already taking include:

• Locking doors during school hours.
• Requiring all visitors to check in and wear a badge while on campus.
• Hiring security guards or having teachers and faculty make rounds on campus grounds throughout the day to notice loiterers more quickly.

But many of these actions can be enhanced and improved upon with the advancements made in digital video surveillance technology, such as InterAct TrueSentry.

• Cameras can monitor and record all activity in and out of doors and tied to access control devices. If any door is opened when it shouldn’t be, the camera would automatically alert administrative staff with an audible alarm, drawing their attention to the camera so they can react immediately.
• A perimeter can be defined around the school in the system and cameras monitoring the grounds can detect when someone is loitering within the perimeter during school hours. This technology might have detected the perpetrator in Bailey, CO for instance since he was hanging around outside the school for 20 minutes before entering.
• TrueSentry is integrated with the InterAct MissionMode alert notification and crisis management system. With this capability, once a threat is detected, administrators and security personnel can receive an alert on their cell phone, pager, SMS or e-mail and view the video of the incident immediately to speed response.

Response personnel can take control of the live camera feed and get a view of the current situation so that can plan an effective resolution. If officials in Bailey, CO had been able to see inside they may have chosen to enter the building sooner without blasting through a wall.

And InterAct will soon be announcing a School Surveillance Starter Kit. This will include 4 surveillance cameras and a TrueSentry NVR for $16,400. The system will also be available for a 3-year lease at $592.90 per month or 3 annual payments of $7,114.80.

MSNBC Postponed

Our spot on MSNBC has been postponed and will hopefully air tomorrow.