Mass Text Message Alert in Emergency Response - a solution for students
Written by Glenn Letham (GISuser editor)
17 April 2007
With the recent Virginia Tech tragedy many of us are left asking ourselves how does this happen? Why did this happen? Now is not the time to second guess or lay blame, however, it is a time to learn and hopefully prepare ourselves for a better response should such a situation ever happen again. We're hearing many media outlets question the response and then bring up the topic of enabling technology for emergency response and emergency notification. Touching on this topic we've identified a couple of alert notification systems that could be used in such an event... the technology is in place and the solutions are in use. Our thoughts and best wishes go out to the Students of Virginia Tech and all those touched by the recent tragedy.
With the recent massacre at Virginia Tech, many in the media are asking the question, "why was there no mass notification or shut-down of the campus after 2 hours"? Here's details of a mobile SMS solution that could be used in emergency situations.
OmniAlert specializes in mass communications for sending time-sensitive information to large groups of people.
Mass Communication defined - A selective mass communication system is defined as a platform to deliver a message to an entire audience by all means necessary with one click of a button
How it Works:
Omnilert Network enables clients to send urgent messages to multiple devices of subscribers within an entire community or groups of the community to communicate important information. The web-based service requires no additional hardware or software, is extremely easy-to-use, and is completely self-administered by each client and their subscribers.
The service can instantly and simultaneously send alerts to a subscriber's:
Mobile phone (via SMS text message)
Traditional wired phone
Satellite phone
Blackberry
Smart phone
Wireless PDA
Pager
E-mail account
Web page (via our Bulletin Board feature)
Personal portals (MyYahoo, Google or AOL page)
RSS Readers
Omnilert Applications: Omnilert is ideal for organizations responsible for the well being of citizens, employees, students, athletes, volunteers, partners, first responders and others.
It's difficult to question weather such a solution could have prevented the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech University, however, given the level of pentration of cell phone usage such a solution does indeed need to be considered in the future.
Now here's a chilling news item that was reported last year on Roanoke.com... the story was titled Tech looks to tap into text messaging. The story details how VT was considering following the lead of other colleges by implementing a text messaging notification system. The need for such an alert system came out of last year's evacuation of the student center due to a manhunt. It's indeed somewhat troubling that a solution was considered but has yet to be implemented. No doubt such solutions will be in demand from this day forward.
Another mass notification system that could be used in such a situation is provided by e2Campus - e2Campus is a selective mass notification system that empowers schools to send time-sensitive messages to parents, students, faculty and staff – wherever they are. See http://www.e2campus.com/notification_services.htm
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With the recent massacre at Virginia Tech, many in the media are asking the question, "why was there no mass notification or shut-down of the campus after 2 hours"? Here's details of a mobile SMS solution that could be used in emergency situations.
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