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| Challenge |
| Emergency management agencies (EMAs) are state- or county-wide entities responsible for emergency preparedness, and in times of emergency or disaster, in providing protection and assistance to citizens. There are many groups of people that need to be alerted – including emergency preparedness communities, state employees, partner agencies, the media, and the general public. Delivering timely and relevant alerts to these people across different agencies and constituencies via multiple communication channels, including the National Emergency Alert System, is a challenge faced by EMAs across the country. |
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| Audience |
| Emergency preparedness community (including first responders, federal, state and local government agencies), civil defense personnel, local emergency managers |
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| Sectors |
| Emergency Management Agencies (EMAs), state civil defense |
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| Solution |
| AtHoc IWSAlerts is an emergency warning system that allows emergency management agencies to use their existing network to reach personnel within their agency and partner organizations such as the emergency preparedness community through multiple redundant channels of communications. These include desktop alerts to PCs, text-messaging to mobile phones or BlackBerries, and telephony to mobile or land phones and TTY/TDD devices. The system can be triggered manually by emergency managers or automatically by monitoring events from external agencies such as the National Weather Service. IWSAlerts also enables EMAs to trigger alerts to the public over the Emergency Alert System (EAS) using the same unified Web-enabled system, which improves response time and bolsters public safety.
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| Figure 1: IWSAlerts Manages Emergency Notification Process |
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| Solution Benefits and Capabilities |
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Provides rapid mass notification using existing IP network |
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Notifies personnel through multiple channels (PCs, cell phones, PDAs, pagers, Blackberries, computer kiosks, landline phones, sirens, PA systems and digital billboards) |
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Consolidates IP and traditional notification channels into a single alerting platform |
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Sends intrusive audio-visual desktop alerts to recipients |
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Interoperates with other agencies and organizations such as emergency services and neighboring facilities using the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) |
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Section 508 compliant - Provides alerting for special needs community |
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Remotely activates the National Emergency Alert System(EAS) |
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Establishes standard operating procedures for emergency notifications |
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Integrates with sources of emergency information such as the National Weather Service |
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Allows operators to trigger alerts from any Web browser using secure login credentials |
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