State of New York Fix for Major Emergency Notification Challenge

I must confess to being skeptical. When I heard the State of New York claim the emergency notification system it built had real throttling to adjust to delivery infrastructure issues, I doubted it.

When you're trying to notify large quantities of people, you're bound to run into infrastructure issues. If you're making phone calls in an emergency (or on Mother's Day), the telco central offices can be clogged. If you're trying to send SMS messages, they can get cued behind other messages. If you're trying to send email, you can get delays from any of the large number of paths your messages must follow. Not to mention the fact that all of these delivery infrastructures can become even more clogged when a serious, widespread emergency is occurring...just when they're needed the most.

These types of problems are pretty much unavoidable, despite best efforts. The calling, SMSing, and emailing infrastructures simply won't accommodate the bursts of activity that a serious emergency in a heavily-populated area will create.

So, how could the State of New York claim that its system truly works around the logjams? Well, Kevin Ross is how. He's the energetic Assistant Director of Technology for the New York State Emergency Management Office (SEMO). Ross and team have created solid technology, but what they've done that's so blasted impressive is create real relationships, technology and otherwise, with many of the providers of infrastructure throughout New York.

These relationships allow the SEMO system to, first, know when logjams are occurring real-time, then, work around them. This is no small accomplishment. Infrastructure providers are very protective about how their networks function, and closely guard information about true capabilities.

Ross told us infrastructure vendors can't be dictated to. "They need to know that you respect their networks and that you know what you're talking about", he said. Then, it's a matter of forging relationships. It's not easy. Ross said, "It's extremely difficult to bring these people together". But, now that he has, infrastructure providers are bringing him creative new ideas for using their pipelines for emergency notification.

There's much more to be said about Ross and the SEMO system, and we will post more. For now, though, know there's at least one person who has figured out how to solve this chronic problem. His system may not be perfect, but holy moly, it's impressive!

All the best,


Rick