Counties seek versatile emergency alert technologies
If anything even remotely positive came of September 11, it may be that counties are catching up with technological prowess in order to keep the public informed of impending disasters and emergencies.
The old system of sirens, radio alerts and scrolling messages across TV screens is being enhanced by a variety of options from e-mail alerts to text messaging to voicemail messaging. Governments are finding better ways every day to improve their direct access within departments and to citizens.
And many counties are finding the most direct path to the public is through technologies like the Internet and cell phones. Counties are building their own emergency-alert networks, working with other jurisdictions on such networks, and seeking products from companies that can provide networks at manageable costs.
"Really, the cost was minimal, especially when you consider that this could save lives," said Darrin Lewis, emergency manager, Buffalo County, Neb., which features a "Buffalo Watch" system prominently displayed on its home page (www.buffalogov.org).
Buffalo Watch allows the county to have a one-stop shop for weather alerts, AMBER alerts and any other unexpected emergencies. The county was the first to use the vendor that designed the Buffalo Watch software, so it got a very good deal, but Supervisor Tim Loewenstein said any county with a population comparable to Buffalo County's 42,000 could receive the same services for less than $20,000.
Lewis added, "The cost expense, other than the start up, has basically just been the time it took to get everybody's e-mail addresses. And letting people know. It's really worked rather well. And we're promoting the program as hard as we can, by putting business cards at businesses, schools, restaurants, law offices and places with countertops."
Loewenstein said, "It's my understanding that quite a few people have signed up for the program since it was deployed." He said homeland security funding has not been used for Buffalo Watch, but agreed that such applications would be a good future use for federal funds. The county is considering introducing a system that would automatically phone registered users with particular emergency messages, but the system costs between $20,000 and $60,000.
Weighing the benefits
Some counties received funding from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and immediately used it to upgrade their alert infrastructure. And while DHS is currently considering a text messaging system, Fairfax County, Va., bought an e-mail and text messaging system for $310,000 in start-up costs.
Most large counties, like Fairfax, which has around 1 million residents, would need to spend approximately $300,000 for the system. Arlington County, Va., with a population of 190,000, paid $100,000 in start-up costs and $10,000 annually in technology upgrades for its system. But there are arguments that not enough cell phone users utilize their text messaging. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, 80 percent of cell phone owners don't use text messages on a regular basis.
"To some degree, we're not seeing the kind of subscription volume we would like to see. We're trying to establish a connectedness with the community, but we're also keeping a tight rein on what kind of messages we send. We don't do weather alerts or when Homeland Security changes the threat levels," said James Schwartz, director of emergency services, Arlington County. "We could go five to 10 years before we ever use it again."
Schwartz said there has been some concern by county officials that the cost of the system may be high for something that is used so infrequently. Plus, there have only been about 2,200 citizens to register so far at www.arlingtonalert.com. Those have been through word of mouth, but county officials are stepping up their promotion of the service.
"We had a booth set up at the county fair. And we're also asking if people have four-wheel-drive trucks to make available in a crisis. It could be a mechanism, for example, to get nurses to the hospitals," Schwartz said.
Mom-and-pop emergency management
King County, Wash., has gone in a different direction. Its Department of Transportation created its own computer application, which is available for more than 100 organizations, both private and public within the county, to post their emergency information for the public, in a single location at www.metrokc.gov.
"The whole thing started with a group of public-information agencies that came together. We felt we weren't able to coordinate very well with each other and with the public," said Rochelle Ogershok, public affairs manager, King County DOT.
Ogershok played a lead role in developing the Regional Public Information Network (RPIN), which she calls a "very rare grass roots group." The RPIN alerts users by cell phone and e-mail of everything from everyday, routine road closures to major incidents. Snohomish, Pierce and King counties each post their alerts to the same Web page, as do municipalities, nonprofits, businesses, and several other entities. The site even serves as a quality backup for these other entities, should their Web sites be affected in an emergency. But even with all this useful information available, after three years' worth of operation for the e-mail service, the network still only has around 3,000 subscribers.
"One of the things that we find to be a challenge is the marketing of it. I think there's clearly room for additional growth," said Ogershok, who added that the network has been maintained almost cost-free, and that King County has no employees devoted full-time to its upkeep.
"There are things we'd like to improve subject to the availability of funds. There has been talk, through our emergency management people, about how homeland security funding could happen. But we haven't reached the point where we need to identify grants or funding," she said.
Middle-ground options
Still, there are other options these days for counties. One particular service falls somewhere between a homemade system and a relatively pricey outsourced system. The Emergency E-mail and Wireless Network, based in Florida, has about 100 counties as clients for its e-mail, cell and wireless services, as well as some text-to-speech conversion for telephone voicemail.
Skip Tomargo, founder, said, "We're the lowest cost provider in the market. Small [counties] would never be able to provide the infrastructure without access to our technology."
The four-year-old company has extremely limited marketing outreach, so prospective clients discover it by word of mouth. Any citizen anywhere in the country may sign up free for the service at www.emergencyemail.org, but counties pay a fee for enhanced features that help launch their emergency management alert systems inexpensively and with little work commitments from county employees.
Costs of the network to counties are based on population size, with the cheapest level at around $80 per month and subsequent ranges up to several thousand dollars per month. Among other alerting agencies, the Emergency E-mail and Wireless Network sends localized storm watch information from the National Weather Service, and alerts from the U.S. Geological Survey, DHS and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"It's different in that, before I even signed up as a provider, I signed up as an individual subscriber," said Tracy Jackson, director of emergency services, Iredell County, N.C. "We get more than weather alerts. I can get on the Net at home and alert anybody [of local emergencies] who could subscribe."
Iredell County, with its population of 127,000, is on a pricing schedule with the Emergency E-mail and Wireless Network that allows for 300,000 messages sent per year at an annual cost to the county of $3,600. Officials said the network offers more than enough flexibility for their purposes.
At $1,200 per year, Franklin County, Fla. recently signed up for the network. "We don't have the money. This seems to be working for us, and you can design it for whatever you need. I got the basic service because we have a small county," said Tim Turner, county emergency director.
Pierce County, Wash. also recently signed up for the network. It also contributes to the King County-administered RPIN portal, so the county is double secure.
Jackson, of Iredell County, added, "There are so many forms of media, sometimes it's hard to track [what people will be tuned into at any given time]. And people are so busy and on the go. If they've got a cell phone or pager on them, they're going to get these messages. They're good messages."
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