Promoting Preparedness with Community Notification

As most of you know, September is National Preparedness Month--a time to increase public awareness on preparing for disasters. Historically, compelling people to proactively ready themselves for bad things (particularly when no imminent threat exists) has proven to be difficult. For example, last year, the American Red Cross found in a national survey that 89% of Americans believed it was important to prepare for disasters, but only 57% said they had taken steps toward preparedness.

So how can emergency notification systems aid in citizen preparation?

Promoting preparedness with ENS.

ENS systems are powerful tools for informing citizens quickly and efficiently. As such, local agencies should consider using them to encourage citizen preparedness. While automated calls are not appropriate for imparting a great deal of detail, here is some information you may wish to communicate:

- Refer citizens to online resources such as www.ready.gov that describes items to include in preparedness kits (or better yet, refer them to your local emergency management site that includes this information).

- In addition to "hard goods" preparation such as water and flashlights, encourage the development of personal communications plans. Provide details on your website.

- Promote sign-ups for mobile devices. Make this an easily identifiable link on your preparedness web page. Even if your initial calls don't hit unregistered citizens (those with cell phones only), your message may reach them "virally" from those who do receive it.

- Encourage notification recipients to help others prepare (particularly at-risk populations such as the elderly and special needs citizens).

While the option of sending mass notifications may not be available to all emergency managers due to funding or data licensing issues, many can take advantage of this useful communications tool to remind citizens of their own role in responding to critical events. The end result is a safer, more protected population, which seems to me is the primary goal of a notification system anyway.

Best regards,

Lorin