Mobile-Friendly Emergency Information Portal

About the Program

Category: Risk and Emergency Management (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

In 2015, Leon County implemented a significant upgrade to its Emergency Information Portal (EIP), including making the portal more accessible and user-friendly for mobile devices. The EIP is a web portal utilized by the County’s Public Information Office during emergency events to provide critical emergency information to the public. The mobile-friendly EIP offers citizens a wide array of information about weather disasters and other emergency events and how to prepare for them, including useful tips on preparing and protecting citizens in the event that natural or man-made disasters occur in Leon County. The results and success of upgrading the County’s new mobile-friendly EIP can best be summarized using Hurricane Hermine as an example of the critical need for mobile-accessible emergency public information. On September 1, 2016, Hurricane Hermine was the first hurricane to make landfall in Florida in 11 years and the first hurricane to directly hit Leon County in nearly 30 years. During the Hurricane Hermine incident and in the days that followed, the EIP received more than 100,000 hits from citizens seeking emergency public information.