W.A.R.N. and Avaya in DHS Program
Bechtel Jacobs Company LLC has implemented W.A.R.N. for first responder and emergency communication processes. Bechtel Jacobs is the environmental management contractor for the U. S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Office, located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
The company is responsible for environmental cleanup and waste management on DOE’s Oak Ridge Reservation. Bechtel Jacobs Company also supports DOE in a reindustrialization program to find commercial uses for many Oak Ridge facilities that no longer have a mission.
Cleveland Aging Director Jane Fumich
Jane Fumich, Director of the Cleveland Department of Aging, was extremely satisfied with the high percent of successful contacts. Fumich has been an advocate and a major player in issues affecting both the City’s and Cuyahoga County’s older residents for the length of her career. She frequently receives messages from seniors thanking the Department and the City of Cleveland for senior care alerts (“Care Calls”). The program has been successfully running since 2003.
ORNL staff using W.A.R.N. Command
NFPA was founded in 1896 and is the world’s leading advocate of fire prevention, and an authoritative source on public safety with over 75,000 members worldwide.
Click here to open the informational PDF on the W.A.R.N. solution for New Mexico, or contact W.A.R.N. at information@warncalling.com for the State of New Mexico outlining all services available and discounted pricing on the state ESS documents.
Additional emergency solutions services include Desktop Notifications, Continuity of Government online management software, Weather tracking and alerting modules, and more.
Huntington – Cabell County’s Office of Emergency Services directed a mock disaster drill on October 23, one of the first of its kind in the area.
In the drill, 150 people will act as patients, complaining of chemical respiratory problems and eye irritations caused by a leak of hydrochloric acid caused by a supposed leak from a tanker truck struck by a passenger vehicle at a location in Huntington. The drill was specifically used to test W.A.R.N., which calls residents by phone and provides information in case of emergencies. Police, fire, ambulance, transportation and local health agencies from throughout Cabell County participated. The drill was determined successful.
W.A.R.N. was purchased by Cabell County in July, 2008 and is used for public notification. The company’s headquarters are in Gallatin, TN with a division located in Charleston, WV.
Parkersburg – Wood County commissioners authorized Emergency Services Director, Ed Hupp, to select W.A.R.N. (Wide Area Rapid Notification) after reviewing proposals from several other mass notification companies.
Wood County did not renew its contract with Community Alert Network (C.A.N.) about a year ago after several attempts to activate the notification system for a test alert failed.
W.A.R.N. is already in place in 15 counties in West Virginia and is on a state contract bid.
Hupp said the other proposals received were significantly higher in cost and were out-of-state firms. (W.A.R.N. has a significant presence in Charleston, WV where one of its sales and customer support divisions is located.)
“I do think this is an important tool for emergency services to have here and it’s probably been too long that we haven’t had something in place,” Commissioner Rick Modesitt said.
Officials noted the phone numbers for the emergency alert network are provided by local phone companies so anyone with a cell phone would have to voluntarily register their cell phone number iff they want to be notified through the W.A.R.N. system.
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New alerting and warning system launches today
BERKELEY – The University of California, Berkeley, announced today (Monday, Aug. 25) that it is launching a new alerting and warning service that can provide immediate notification to individual students, faculty and staff of situations on or near campus that may pose an immediate threat to their safety and provide instructions on what to do.
Called “WarnMe,” the new service can contact individuals by phones, text messaging and email to help keep the campus community safe in an immediate crisis, such as a major accident, natural disaster or an assailant on campus, said campus officials.
The new mass notification service is the latest addition in the campus’s continuing efforts to improve safety and emergency response. WarnMe will be used in conjunction with other elements of UC Berkeley’s emergency communications system, including the campuswide siren system that is tested on the first Wednesday of each month.
In all emergencies, natural disasters and other crises, information will be posted on the campus homepage and on the off-site emergency Web site at emergency.berkeley.edu. Information will also be recorded on the toll-free emergency number, 1-800-705-9998, and broadcast on the campus radio station, KALX 90.7 FM.
The new WarnMe system uses contact information provided by students, faculty and staff. Emergency alerts and instructions on what to do can be sent via cell phone, text messaging, email, and office and home phones, including TTY devices. In all, individuals may choose to receive messages on up to seven communication devices.
The service is an opt-in program, and a campaign is underway to encourage the campus community to sign up. Students were able to enroll beginning in late July. Faculty and staff started to sign up over the weekend. Already, 11,200 on campus have signed up. A campus identification number is required to enroll.
Last fall, UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau charged a task force to plan and implement a phone and text-based alerting and warning system by the fall 2008 semester.
W.A.R.N. is proud to expand our partnership with one of the nation’s leading GIS (Geographic Information Systems) developers, providers, and trainers; GEO-Jobe GIS Consulting of Nashville, Tennessee.
As our dedicated GIS developer partner since 2002, GEO-Jobe has added to W.A.R.N. – with the most powerful tool set on the market for rapid click, draw, and fire on their GEO-Powered platform allowing various shape or random selections and complete calling made active in selected areas in seconds.In 2008, Geo-Jobe is adding 2D / 3D, Bird’s Eye and Aerial views, super hi-res pictography of buildings and facilities, and more, to the W.A.R.N. Tool Bar and GeoPowered systems. W.A.R.N. matches the power of the GEO-Jobe platform with a high-speed calling system making thousands of calls a minute to telephones and other voice devices. W.A.R.N. has already helped expand the reach of GEO-Jobe into four new states, and is actively marketing the web-enabled GIS platform nationwide.
President Neill Jobe believes the expanded partnership can push more powerful services faster to the pubic and private sectors. GEO-Jobe GIS Consulting recognizes the importance of good communication services through rapid notification. We are excited to have the opportunity to help further expand the functionality of the W.A.R.N. application, and to introduce it to new industries that may benefit from this technology. GEO-Jobe® was formed to provide Geographic Information Systems (GIS) solutions to local governments, utilities, and educational institutions in the Southeast. Their GIS experience can help organizations through the most critical processes such as planning, hardware/software selection, and training — taking a business through every step of GIS Implementation.
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When a dam threatened to break in April, Lincoln County 911 used the Wide Area Rapid Notification system – or WARN – to call people at home alerting them the a life threatening emergency.
See Channel 13 WOWK-TV: http://www.swcg-inc.com/blog/?p=129
Allen Holder, director of Lincoln county’s emergency services, said mobile alerts, categorized by town, will run from natural disasters to missing people.
“The quicker we can get the information out to the public that we have a need for you to be watching, looking out your windows or doors, to determine that there’s someone out there that could be lost, the quicker we can actually get the help to the people”, Holder said.
Holder admits cell phone coverage in Lincoln County is spotty, but many residents work in Charleston or Huntington and they can be alerted to trouble at home before they even hit the road.
“I can tell you the smallest detail in disaster planning becomes the biggest obstacle,” said Dr. J. Loren Smith, director of Lincoln County Health Department. Smith anticipates WARN will help cut what he called the “hearsay obstacle” that often spreads misinformation and causes confusion.
County leaders say using land phone lines, WARN reaches the entire county in 15 minutes and has the potential to reach even more via cell phone no matter the distance from the emergency.
