[October 26, 2012] |
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Everbridge Provides Communities and Businesses with Safety and Preparedness Tips for Hurricane Sandy
GLENDALE, Calif. --(Business Wire)--
Everbridge, the leading provider of interactive
communication and mass
notification solutions, today announced a series of best practices
for hurricane safety and preparedness.
Each year during hurricane season, people living along coastal and
inland communities face the danger of these powerful storms. In fact,
Munich RE, one of the world's leading reinsurers, recently released data
showing that North America has been the most affected by weather-related
extreme events in recent decades. Their data states that from "1980 to
2011 - the overall loss burden from weather catastrophes in North
America was US$1,060bn (in 2011 values)" with 30,000 lost lives. In
2005, Hurricane Katrina became the costliest and deadliest storm taking
more than 1,300 lives and costing US$125bn.
To best prepare for the unpredictable impact, municipalities, academia
and businesses should all ensure that:
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Severe weather alerts are integrated with your mass communication
system with automated calls-to-action for emergency responders and
constituents.
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Your weather alerts include lightning, high winds, flash floods and
flooding - all weather related to hurricanes.
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Opt-in portal information is well promoted and multiple contact paths
exist for each member of your system to ensure that people, not just
devices are reached.
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Adequate and recent testing of the system and its contact data has
been done to guarantee expected results.
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All emrgency responders are trained on how to initiate communications
from their mobile devices using lists and map-based capabilities and
do not have to rely on being at the office or in front of a computer.
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Constituents are empowered with mobile apps that they can use to
proactively communicate their status and need for emergency response.
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Social media sites like Twitter (News - Alert) are being monitored for real-time,
location-specific impact to individuals and communities.
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Important internal, external & social media information can be
aggregated in a single console to deliver situational intelligence to
emergency response teams as soon as possible.
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Instant conference call capabilities are available to automatically
bridge key stakeholders to a call by simply having them press a single
key or button when they receive a notification.
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The emergency plan for hurricanes includes appropriate communications
at every stage of the incident lifecycle.
"Hurricanes are the single costliest and most deadly storm system for
North America," said Imad Mouline, chief strategy officer, Everbridge.
"Businesses and municipalities need to keep in mind that "reaching a
person, not a device", is the right philosophy during severe weather.
Cell towers might be down, Telco Central Offices might be overloaded,
etc… no single communication path is 100% effective, and the only way to
dramatically increase the chances of reaching recipients is to try
multiple contact paths, and, then once they are reached and confirm,
discontinue further attempts to reach them."
Related Resources
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Listen to how the Town of East Haddam, CT used Everbridge to keep
citizens safe during unexpected severe weather, here.
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Read about how Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) manages
severe weather with Everbridge, click
here.
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Learn how to communicate during the 6 stages of a crisis, here.
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Learn about Everbridge's next generation new SMART Weather Alerting
solution here.
About Everbridge
Everbridge provides industry-leading interactive communication and mass
notification solutions to organizations in all major industries and
government sectors. Everbridge solutions increase connectivity to key
audiences, automate communication processes, and integrate social media,
data feeds, and recipient feedback into a single communications console.
Ultimately, these solutions provide the insight and infrastructure that
help clients save lives, manage critical activities and improve the
efficiency of daily operations. For more information about, please see www.everbridge.com.
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