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Touchstone Consulting Group - An SRA Company
Everyone talks about the weather. Now’s your chance to “tweet” it and be heard. Through an experimental program, the National Weather Service will be searching for tweets that contain significant weather information. You can tweet any weather event that occurs in the area in which you are located, but they are most interested in significant events: snowfall, severe weather, flooding, etc.
More information on how to participate: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/bmx/?n=twitterstormreports
Disseminating Relevant Information
According to a recent Pew Research public opinion poll, 26 percent of Americans receive their news and information from cell phones. Additionally the poll found that 43 percent of those under 50 receive news on their mobile phones. These two findings demonstrate an important factor when considering how best to modernize emergency alert notification systems as it has serious implications for enhancing the distribution of timely information. In particular, mobile phone technology adoption rates and the use of these ubiquitous devices as a main informational portal for civilians is a key component to re-engineering future alert systems.
Keeping this in mind, it’s vital to recognize the importance of cell phones and smartphones as a critical link to broadcasting emergency alerts to citizens. In December 2008, 32 percent of consumers used a smartphone. Compare that number with December 2009 when it increased to 42 percent of consumers. The figures are significant as the adoption rate of smartphones is projected by the Nielsen Company, a marketing and media information company, to reach 50 percent and begin to overtake feature phone adoption by the third quarter of 2011.
To read the entire article click here.
Government officials announced this week their commitment to new a cell phone text system designed to alert citizens before or during any natural or manmade disaster. Transportation and Telecommunications Minister Felipe Morandé and the ministry’s undersecretary Jorge Atton announced the system this week. The officials said they have high hopes for program, since nearly all Chileans now have a cellphone.
The system will be designed to send an early alert by text message concerning earthquakes, tsunamis, toxic chemical clouds or other natural or manmade disasters. The text messages will also advise regarding the magnitude of the crisis, provide evacuation maps and advise regarding the length of the danger. The alert will go first to subscribers of the program – with no cost for signing up – then to all cellphones in the emergency zone.
The government hopes to use digital television to transmit these messages as well, although further research and design are necessary.
For more information please click here.
Donald McGough, who runs Boston’s emergency preparedness office, was at lunch in West Roxbury Saturday when a colleague phoned with an urgent message. The huge pipe that carries clean water to Boston and its suburbs had ruptured, and up to 2 million people needed to be told to boil their tap water before drinking it.
This was the sort of event McGough and his colleagues have repeatedly trained for, and they sprang into action. Within minutes, they had joined a sprawling network of state, regional, and local agencies attempting to alert the diverse citizenry of a densely populated eastern Massachusetts.
Over the next several hours, McGough and his colleagues faced a test of the emergency procedures they have designed and debated for years, and by most accounts, the system worked well.
For more please click here.
