Installation Warning System

Challenge

During emergencies, it is critical to quickly and accurately notify all personnel of threats and to give instructions to assure their safety and ability to respond. From approaching tornados to terrorist threats, bases must be able to instantly reach mass audiences and targeted individuals, whether they are outdoors or inside sound-proof buildings or bunkers. This requires leveraging existing assets, specifically, siren poles, wiring and phone exchanges, and most importantly, the network – one of the most pervasive assets. Effective emergency mass notification is not only essential for ensuring dangerous situations are dealt with properly and personnel are kept safe, but is also necessary for compliance with DoD mandates for Full Spectrum Threat Response (FSTR) readiness.

Audience

Commanders, security personnel, Threat Response Teams and/or Communications Directorates of military bases, installations and networked facilities in charge of implementing FSTR warning and notification systems.

Solution

IWSAlerts is a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solution that turns an installation’s existing IP network into a comprehensive emergency notification system. IWSAlerts integrates with other alerting channels such as PA communications, sirens, telephony and text-messaging services and provides a single, unified console for managing, triggering and controlling the emergency notification process across all delivery devices.

This allows command post managers and operators to quickly and efficiently communicate a consistent yet individually tailored alert to targeted personnel, first responders, senior officers and security teams. The information is sent via multiple and redundant means, including desktops and laptops, cell phones, PDA’s, BlackBerries, landline phones, PA systems and sirens.

Alerts can be activated in seconds, reaching thousands of people on the network in an average of one minute. And because the network uses multi-directional communication, acknowledgements from every alerted recipient can also be tracked in order to provide an instantaneous picture of personnel status and accountability.

Figure 1: IWSAlerts Manages Emergency Notification Process

Solution Benefits and Capabilities

• Provides rapid mass notification using existing IP network
• Notifies personnel through multiple channels (PCs, cell phones, PDAs, pagers, BlackBerries, computer kiosks, landline phones, sirens, PA systems and digital billboards)
• Consolidates IP and traditional notification channels into a single alerting platform
• Sends intrusive audio-visual desktop alerts to recipients
• Sends alerts to other organizations such as emergency services and neighboring facilities
• Section 508 compliant – Provides alerting for special needs community
• Tracks recipient feedback in real-time
• Establishes standard operating procedures for emergency notifications
• Manages alert recipient information and integrates with user directories
• Integrates with sources of emergency information such as the National Weather Service
• Allows operators to trigger alerts from any Web browser using secure login credentials