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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.

While more universities are implementing emergency notification systems in the wake of campus shootings at Virginia Tech University and Northern Illinois University, officials at UC Davis said their new system was already in the planning stages before those campus tragedies.

“Safety is a top priority on the campus. It always is so this is one of the tools that we’re going to try to use to make that happen,” said Valerie Lucus, UC Davis Emergency Operations Manager.

See KCRA 3 Story: http://www.kcra.com/news/15421405/detail.html

See News 10 Story: http://www.news10.net/display_story.aspx?storyid=38891

The communications department of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar (CA) has contracted with W.A.R.N. to provide notification services base-wide. MCAS Miramar is home to the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing Headquarters as well as Marine Aircraft Groups 11 and 16. These units comprise many different fixed wing and rotor wing aircraft including the F/A-18 Hornet, KC-130J Hercules, CH-46 Sea Knight, CH-53 Sea Stallion as well as station UC-35 Citations. The base is also home to Marine Wing Support Group 37, Marine Air Control Group 38 and the 3rd MAW Band among other units.

“The new W.A.R.N. capability is a force multiplier for the G-6 shop”‚ said W.A.R.N. Military Director and former Marine Josh Evans. “They will be able to do in seconds what used to take many hours, with faster results and reporting. We look forward to a long relationship of service.”

Nashville, TN – Students and faculty at Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center can now be notified rapidly in the event of an emergency.

View Fox News Story here: http://www.fox17.com/newsroom/top_stories/vid_1201.shtml

View News Channel 5 Story: http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=7924255

The school has implemented a new alert system named “Alert-VU”, which is powered by the W.A.R.N. alerting protocol in use by such diverse U.S. agencies as the US Department of Defense, US Department of Homeland Security, and the Defense Logistics Agency.

Other US-based campuses using the W.A.R.N. solution include the University of Nebraska, the University of Kentucky, Case Western Reserve University, University of California – Davis, the University of South Alabama, and others.

The wide area rapid notification system works by sending mass text messages, e-mail and phone calls during an emergency. The free service is available to anyone on the Vanderbilt University or Medical Center campus.

Wide Area Rapid Notification (W.A.R.N.) has been helping to manage the City of Cleveland, Ohio, Care Calls Program for the Department of Aging since 2004. The program was re-designed using W.A.R.N., to automatically check up on elderly citizens in the city, and electronically gather their positive response to their daily wellness check or “Care Call”, and to automatically record their responses and report on the calls in real-time.

Jane Fumich, Director, Department of Aging, initiated W.A.R.N. services, for the City of Cleveland, OH. “We were using another system to check on our seniors and quite frankly, it didn’t work very well. We’ve been extremely satisfied with W.A.R.N.’s performance. Not only does their elderly wellness check system work well, and is easily understandable, their customer service is superb.”

This fully-automated system from W.A.R.N. differs from other notification providers in several key ways and has set a “national model” according to aging population advocates. The W.A.R.N. elderly and handicapped notification program allows for automated calling to a large group simultaneously, then reports and removes all positive responses. Then the program moves into a series of re-dials, removing and reporting additional responses as received. If after a certain number of specified calls, there is no response, the program can escalate to family members, key holders, pastors, or others who are concerned or responsible for the senior. They are automatically contacted in a rotating sequence, ensuring someone responds positively to check on the adult. All of these cycles will complete, and report back to the Aging Director, before an EMS or City vehicle is dispatched. Using the W.A.R.N. system can save thousands of dollars in fees for false alarms and lost time and productivity for EMS personnel when a true emergency does not exist.