Emergency Notification System Analysis

Abstract

The emergency notification system enables one-way or two-way communication between emergency communication staff, first responders, and impacted individuals. Counties have suffered from various severe weather conditions from time to time, including flooding, thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, tsunamis, freezing conditions, fire, blizzards, and other climatic emergencies. There are also other human-caused emergencies such as hazardous conditions caused by chemical or gas spills, or nuclear leaks that threaten people, wildlife, and property. The County’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM) is responsible for warning the affected population to minimize loss of life and property from disasters, provide emergency planning, minimize and reduce the impacts caused by the disasters through proactive prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery [1]. This report provides detailed analysis on the emergency communication channels used to minimize and reduce the impacts of natural and human-caused disasters. The report’s objective is to provide recommendations on using additional communication channels to improve reachability, enable two-way communication between OEM and County residents and to make the notifications actionable. The report aims to analyze the various existing notification systems and communication channels successfully used by other counties, understanding alerting privileges through social media, and identifying the current system limitations.