[NA]Disaster preparedness

Let'sgoflying!

Let'sgoflying!

Touchdown! Greaser!
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Feb 23, 2005
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west Texas
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Dave Taylor
I am going to chat with our county officials about communication between them and the residents during a disaster. (it is apparent they have nothing set up whatsoever)

a) what means of comm is available? I have:
-town-hall siren
-car-mounted hailing systems
-commercial radio
-blitz by cell phone text
-autodialing of landlines with recorded message
-email blasts
-FB (grr)

b) any idea what the landline system might cost? Does it require internet?
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I am going to chat with our county officials about communication between them and the residents during a disaster. (it is apparent they have nothing set up whatsoever)

a) what means of comm is available? I have:
-town-hall siren
-car-mounted hailing systems
-commercial radio
-blitz by cell phone text
-autodialing of landlines with recorded message
-email blasts
-FB (grr)

b) any idea what the landline system might cost? Does it require internet?
Click to expand...
The county I live in has of course sirens for tornados and also uses squad cars to make PA announcements. Last year they started an opt in SMS service. You sign up with the county ESDA group giving them your cellphone number and they will text you important emergency info. Thankfully this is not the ubiquitous Amber alerts that plagued by SAME WX radio a few years ago, but stuff that could affect you. We have gotten only two alerts so far and both were for tornadoes that did indeed touch down.

The WX SAME stuff might also be able to get info to your county. Check with NOAA and the ESDA group about coverage on that as well.
 
Sirens here. Heard them the other night, fortunately the tornadoes decided to go elsewhere.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I am going to chat with our county officials about communication between them and the residents during a disaster. (it is apparent they have nothing set up whatsoever)

a) what means of comm is available? I have:
-town-hall siren
-car-mounted hailing systems
-commercial radio
-blitz by cell phone text
-autodialing of landlines with recorded message
-email blasts
-FB (grr)

b) any idea what the landline system might cost? Does it require internet?
Click to expand...

If you're looking at the notification process for a disaster plan, theres also reverse 9-1-1. Perhaps Emergency Broadcast System? Amber Alerts?
As far as costs go, if their existing systems are antiquated or non-existant, I'd bet there is a grant out there somewhere to at least offset if not cover the costs.
Given a disaster such as a tornado that knocks out power and phones, you're back in the 1950's relying on Fire whistles and public address loudspeakers. Even if cell-service is still up, the county may need to get on a bump list; 9/11 was a prime example of this necessity in that Emergency Service personel could not get through because everyone and their third cousin was clogging up the cell towers (I'm a volunteer FF in NJ and had this problem myself). Since then, I know Verizon did adjust for such a concern in the future, I would think carriers in your area have done the same.
 
Siren's good for initial alert - the “Hey, something’s up!” notice.

There are services which can do the call-out to multiple numbers; the cost is trivial (must be, my son's school uses it. When the word comes out that, say, school is canceled, all phones ring, my cell, CJane's cell, house phone, at the same time. Example: http://www.everbridge.com/aware

That would work with minimal up-front expense.

As for keeping people informed as things develop, nothing beats having a basic radio service. They could implement a low-powered FM solution for modest expense, and that would avoid the whole issue of people having to use their computers or cell phones, all of which become of questionable value in an emergency, as power and landlines become unreliable (or are destroyed).
 
Forgot about reverse 911, a very good solution and one that can be added to the existing 911network. The nice thing is that the 911 database will get updated with everyone's phone number as part of the government rules concerning 911. Good reminder LD!

The only problem is for those that do not have home, wired phones anymore. SIGH! There will not be one solutions that captures everyone's needs. Multiple ways are needed.
 
We've got reverse 911 and texts/recorded calls to cell phones. For the text messages, you can also sign up to be notified of things like road closures. They're both effective as far as things like unexpected road closures or not-close fires go - but for a truly pressing emergency, like a tornado, I think a siren would be far more effective and appropriate.
 
ScottM said:
The only problem is for those that do not have home, wired phones anymore. SIGH! There will not be one solutions that captures everyone's needs. Multiple ways are needed.
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Half the challenge today is just that, not everyone has a hard-wired phone anymore, and the time between warning of potential disaster and it actually occurring is the biggest factor. Something like a hurricane gives plenty of time and is fairly easy to predict, but something like a tornado gives much less time and is far less predictable. Too bad sky writers' efforts would be lost in the clouds:eek:. Im not sure how populated the OP's county is, but that is another concern. Out here in NJ it's relatively difficult to find seclusion, which would make spreading word easier on resources, whereas in a more sparsly populated area, resources would have to be more spread out and theoretically would not be able to cover as much ground as expeditiously. Unfortunately, I could also see it being "of less importance" to the money people in that so much loot is needed for XYZ system that will warn 10k people of impending doom vs the same system that would warn 200k people...
 
airbornejohnny said:
... Im not sure how populated the OP's county is, but that is another concern. ...
Click to expand...

County the size of Delaware.

Population less than the student population at the high school from which I graduated.

You can swing a cat pretty easily out there.
 
SCCutler said:
County the size of Delaware.

Population less than the student population at the high school from which I graduated.

You can swing a cat pretty easily out there.
Click to expand...

The cat idea may be cost effective and wake the neighbors, but aspca may not approve:cornut:

If there are Emerg. Svcs. stations (FD/EMS/PD/OEM/etc) spread out accross the county, I'd bet integrating systems through those organizations would make the most sense. Especially when it comes to grants applicability, it helps for multiple organizations looking for the same improvements. Heck they could even look at it as improving their infrastructure to make NIMS compliance easier, yet add things to their improvements to better serve the people they are protecting.
 
SCCutler said:
County the size of Delaware.
Population less than the student population at the high school from which I graduated.
Click to expand...

Well, with that, fixed infrastructure warning system won't work (low power radio, warning sirens, etc). Those require some population density. You can't economically cover a county that size.
Low Power FM also as the challenge that you have to somehow tell people to start listening on the channel.

Actually, before saying that, let me ask a very specific question:
What is the purpose? To alert, or to pass information on an event that people already know is happening?
 
A siren would get to a significant part of the population and we are considering it, as noted. (It's not like the people are equally distributed each in the center of their square mile! There are concentrations.)
Why wont the mass autodial system with the recorded message work to a cellphone as well as a landline?

PS we are over 2 weeks since the fire raced through town and headed into the mountains and they have given up on it for today as the winds are expected to be 60mph.
AND we have not heard one official word from our county reps on what is happening or what should we consider doing the entire time. Fierce individualism and independence? Anti nanny-stateism? I think some status reports would be useful.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
...Why wont the mass autodial system with the recorded message work to a cellphone as well as a landline?

....
Click to expand...

As far as I know, yes.

But, sounding like it's about as rural as it gets, is the coverage good enough for it to be effective?
 
Listen to Alan... he does this stuff for a living, kinda. ;)

Having personally been involved in the Comm side of how First Responders and others will communicate when they first show up, I can tell ya that in the real-world... nothing really works better than live bodies telling disaster victims exactly where to go and what to do. A sweep of the area if possible.

When the disaster is huge, this is very hard to do and eats up a lot of resources.

Shock is a serious problem in big disasters. If the disaster is predictable (widespread flooding headed your way, lava flows, etc...) the "broadcast" tools, sirens, etc... all help if they're used soon enough and people HEED the warnings.

In areas regularly hit by severe weather, tornadoes, etc... sirens are effective, but there is a tendency for folks to try to "ride it out" for whatever reasons... RE: Katrina.

But for the unexpected, many people are "walking wounded", and have no physical wounds... they're just wandering around lost. You have to have crews dedicated to reaching them and showing them the way to safety.

If you're really getting into Emergency Management, I recommend you take a few FEMA ICS courses online and try to find a friendly larger neighboring jurisdiction to try out a CERT course too. ICS courses are free until you get to the more advanced ones that are done in-person.

Maybe you can spearhead a "train the trainer" type thing with interested area citizens to get CERT going, and get the county/local authorities up to speed on ICS and Mutual Aid requests. CERT's goal is to try to make Citizens NOT walk around in shock, but to self-organize and get neighborhoods ready to weather the disaster or evacuate, etc. It's a pretty good concept on paper. Whether it'll work in reality, remains to be seen.

Small counties and rural areas quite often have to "bring in the troops" (sometimes literally -- National Guard, other times figuratively, by reaching out for Mutual Aid from larger populated areas). Knowing how to "speak their language" via ICS is good. Having built solid relationships with them and doing drills, even better.

How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?
 
How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?
Click to expand...

I wouldn't mind a bit of warning when a 10-mile wide wall of fire is racing my way, instead of me peering through smoke, wondering if it is just another minor pasture fire.
I want my county officials to get into the r. hole; I think it is part of their job.
Thanks.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
A siren would get to a significant part of the population and we are considering it, as noted.
Why wont the mass autodial system with the recorded message work to a cellphone as well as a landline?
...
AND we have not heard one official word from our county reps on what is happening or what should we consider doing the entire time. ... I think some status reports would be useful.
Click to expand...

Again, the question is:
Are you trying to alert, or are you trying to inform?
Those are two completely different missions, with entirely different methodologies and complexities.

A warning siren is hell on jets for alerting, but cannot inform.
Low power is hell on jets for informing, but cannot alert.
Both those solutions have high initial costs, but low ongoing costs.

Phone dialer systems have lower startup costs, but higher ongoing costs, every year, year after year.

Text messaging systems are much cheaper, you can even do it internally off an email server. But delivery is not guaranteed, or even reasonably certain to be timely.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I wouldn't mind a bit of warning when a 10-mile wide wall of fire is racing my way, instead of me peering through smoke, wondering if it is just another minor pasture fire.
I want my county officials to get into the r. hole; I think it is part of their job.
Thanks.
Click to expand...

OK. That's alert. Alerting requires a push-type of system.

There's a few choices.
One is reverse 911. The advantage to reverse 911 is that you can see up an account for relatively minimal initial costs, but very high costs at time of use. The disadvantages to reverse 911 are:
1 - It can only reach landline phones.
2 - It is excellent for alerting (within the landline limitation), but cost prohibitive for sending followup information.

Sirens are good at telling people there's something going on, but of you are in a place that can get tornadoes, then what does the siren mean? If you are using it for tornado warnings, then you want people to take shelter. You don't want to use it for other things, because you don't want them going to the TV to see what's going on when they should be in the basement.

Text-based systems are good for sending status information, but required people to opt-in, and are not good for alerting (how many people will get out of bed to check their phone when it buzzes that there's a text message?)
 
Dave, We got phone calls from the Brewster Cty. emergency system - to let us know what was happening when they thought they'd have the power outage for repair purposes. When the fires happened here a couple yrs ago we just saw it starting in our neighborhood and went from there. Don't remember if any other notices were sent out.
I'm finding out what's going on from the fire pilot guys at KFST and E38 but that's all.
 
:mad2: I forgot about CERT and I've been training them with my FD for 5 years now...ugh.
This is an invaluable resource, especially when manpower (i.e. covering large areas) is needed. We have had very good experiances with our groups; mostly SAR for elderly/alzheimers patients who forget where they are. CERT is not difficult training, and the tasks typically given to them are more remedial ones. For example, if the High School were on fire and there is a large force of responders, if CERT personnel show up they'd be assigned a traffic post or hand out water to firefighters, thus freeing up police/ems to do something more important.
Part of the key to making a program like this successful is ensuring they are properly trained and invited to drill with regular emergency services so everyone gets "warm and fuzzy" working with each other.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Thanks all.
Click to expand...

Dave, I had to go before I could finish my last post.
My office uses Twitter ( http://twitter.com/comcityoem )

If you look at the tweets, I use it for information on what's happening (such as road closures, status information, etc).
I think Twitter is very valuable for this purpose, and I use it alot when operations are in progress. It's free too, which is good.

That said, Twitter is not for urgent messages. But it is very good for status and informational messaging.
 
My town has an opt in mechanism in which I put the number in I want to use. I get text and call to my cell phone as we as email.

I've been notified of water shortages, power outages, even standoffs in the local area.

There is no reason a reverse 911 system database can't be modified with opt ins from their service area for alternative methods of notification.
 
Doggtyred said:
And then there's probably the best method of tornado alerting. Weather radios with alert functions.
Click to expand...

I don't think NOAA has a station with coverage where Dave is. It's pretty remote.
 
Doggtyred said:
My town has an opt in mechanism in which I put the number in I want to use. I get text and call to my cell phone as we as email.

I've been notified of water shortages, power outages, even standoffs in the local area.

There is no reason a reverse 911 system database can't be modified with opt ins from their service area for alternative methods of notification.
Click to expand...
so funny you should mention that - I just spent 2 days inside a company that built the first reverse 911 system and database ... I was there a number of years ago when that initiative first came up as a marketing idea. Sorry, they wouldn't let me back in the database today.
 
Doggtyred said:
There is no reason a reverse 911 system database can't be modified with opt ins from their service area for alternative methods of notification.
Click to expand...

It can. But it's expensive.
The problem with reverse 911 is that it calls *every* landline within a specified area. That means lots and lots of calls, with a cost associated with those.
The systems that merge reverse 911 with opt in end up with all the fixed costs of a managed opt-in system, plus all the per-use costs of reverse 911.
Lots of smaller communities cannot afford it. I know I can't afford it from my budget.
 
Probably the best tornado warning system I have seen is a system call WeatherCall - http://weathercall.net

For $9/yr, you can register your address (or lat/long for rurals) and three phone numbers, plus three email addresses. When the tornado warning box drops (or watches or severe t-storms, depending on your preferences), the system will call all the subscribers in the warning box.

It's *extremely* fast. I get texts direct from the Natl Weather Service when a tornado warning drops in the county, but I get the call from WeatherCall before the NWS text reaches me (which is a matter of seconds).
I use this system to call the police department and tell the dispatcher to activate the city's warning sirens, that's how fast it is.
It has proven reliable enough that I have taken myself out of the decision loop for siren activation. The dispatcher gets the call and hears the recording, and hits the big red button.

Much better than the old system where the tornado warning was for a county. You only get called if YOU are in the box.
 
Last edited:
SCCutler said:
There are services which can do the call-out to multiple numbers; the cost is trivial (must be, my son's school uses it. When the word comes out that, say, school is canceled, all phones ring, my cell, CJane's cell, house phone, at the same time. Example: http://www.everbridge.com/aware
Click to expand...

You will find it amusing (or maybe not) that one of the school systems around here implemented such a system. They started to use it for just that purpose (snow day)... but didn't pay attention to the time they started to call: 3 AM. Oops.

One annoyed (and enterprising) parent set their computer up to start calling the superintendent & school board members at 3:30 AM with a recorded message.

The school system promptly fixed the problem....
 
PilotAlan said:
It can. But it's expensive.
The problem with reverse 911 is that it calls *every* landline within a specified area. That means lots and lots of calls, with a cost associated with those.
The systems that merge reverse 911 with opt in end up with all the fixed costs of a managed opt-in system, plus all the per-use costs of reverse 911.
Lots of smaller communities cannot afford it. I know I can't afford it from my budget.
Click to expand...
Heck, my county can't even afford regular 911. It's outsourced to a neighboring county.
 
There are services which can do the call-out to multiple numbers; the cost is trivial (must be, my son's school uses it)
Click to expand...

The costs are very non-trivial. Everbridge for our community quoted out at north of $50,000. For a county-wide system, it quoted out at almost $100k a year.

Schools use school safety grant money to pay for them to notify parents in a school-shooting type of event. They then also use it snow days and such.
But when the Federal magic money cloud stops raining cash, those systems will go away.
 
PilotAlan said:
The costs are very non-trivial. Everbridge for our community quoted out at north of $50,000. For a county-wide system, it quoted out at almost $100k a year.

Schools use school safety grant money to pay for them to notify parents in a school-shooting type of event. They then also use it snow days and such.
But when the Federal magic money cloud stops raining cash, those systems will go away.
Click to expand...

Or property taxes will go up. ;)

I have this really cool thing called a window at my house.

It's pretty damn accurate if you pause and look out through it once in a while on days when the forecast is calling for severe weather.

Very cost-effective.

I hear NWS sometimes even uses them. ;)

('course I'm also a geek and have any number of ways to listen to 162.55 MHz. That old radio on South Colorado Blvd. comes in better than the one in Parker. I saw the note where the original OP might be "too rural" to receive NOAA's stations.)

My ol' Skywarn spotter card is somewhere at home in a desk drawer. I stopped chasing stuff years ago when I got caught on the wrong side of a supercell.

Big hail is hell on a Geo Metro. Loud too. But I provided an excellent report on the storm's location so an empty farm field could be adequately warned! ;)
 
denverpilot said:
My ol' Skywarn spotter card is somewhere at home in a desk drawer. I stopped chasing stuff years ago when I got caught on the wrong side of a supercell.
Click to expand...

I hear the skywarn guys like video from folks who do that... and use it in training to say DONT DO THIS!!! :hairraise:
 
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/Maps/PHP/texas.php

Heres the coverage map for NOAA weather radio in Texas... pretty darn good I'd say.

There is a NWS transmitter in Alpine that covers Marfa pretty well. I gather that the majority of the 10-15000 folks living in the tri-county area get pretty good reception.

For alerting purposes, the city of Pasadena, TX (nestled onto the southern Houston Ship Channel) has solar powered alerting sirens... Federal Signal or something like that.. integrated by radio control, mounted on 100 ft plus poles. Public Address capable. Im guessing you are looking at 10k per unit for something like that. (its been in place for 15 years or so now)
 
Doggtyred said:
For alerting purposes, the city of Pasadena, TX (nestled onto the southern Houston Ship Channel) has solar powered alerting sirens... Federal Signal or something like that.. integrated by radio control, mounted on 100 ft plus poles. Public Address capable. Im guessing you are looking at 10k per unit for something like that. (its been in place for 15 years or so now)
Click to expand...

I have 17 of those in my city.
Current install cost is $31,000 per site, plus $7000 for the control panel, radio, antenna, and labor.
They're 8 years old, annual maintenance runs about $1000 per site (on average).

The public address functions do allow for an awful lot of flexibility, the solar power allows installation in places without utility service, and the radio control means it's not dependent on functioning landline or cellular service.
 
This week finds me 10 miles E of Birmingham, Alabama. At 0500 I awoke to the sound of the the flashing on the hotel roof being ripped off by a nearby tornado. The tornado warning siren was two blocks away, but since the electricity was the first to go, it was silent. Leeds, Alabama, where we are staying/working got hit pretty hard, but when the afternoon freight train of tornadic fun hit, the sirens were working. The PM storms did little damage to us, but from my 3rd floor window facing
West I could watch the progress of the monster tornado that really hit Birmingham hard. Apparently Tuscaloosa is a disaster and several small communities are simply gone. The radar returns even showed debris returns, and pieces of shingle and insulation were raining down in Birmingham, having been brought up from Tuscaloosa. Sad times for Alabama.
 
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