Public safety agencies and community leaders always need to do their due diligence to keep their populations safe. Some natural disasters and weather emergencies give us a little bit of a warning. Others strike suddenly. So whenever a region does have the chance to prepare, you want to be sure that you’ve done everything you can to make the best use of that time.
Fortunately, there are strategic action items you can do now to get ahead of the storm. Most of them center around how you communicate, and that’s why a good emergency alert app makes all the difference.
How to Improve Your Disaster Communication
Just because your region already has a crisis management plan in place, that doesn’t mean you’re in the clear. You might have an outline and run through the training dozens of times, but all too often, agencies don’t realize that they’re missing crucial communication tools until the crisis actually hits. A streamlined natural disaster communication solution will need to do all of the following:
1. Focus on Agency Interoperability
Responding to a crisis is a team effort. There are a lot of moving parts, and everyone needs to be able to get on the same page quickly. However, the traditional ways of communicating haven’t been giving leaders the right solution for productive collaboration. Sifting through emails can be incredibly time-consuming and disorganized, especially when multiple agencies need to join in on the conversation.
Disaster communication between public safety agencies can be greatly improved when you have an emergency alert app solution. And it’s an absolute must that it focuses on agency interoperability. You need law enforcement, fire departments, and other public safety professionals all working together. Local and state-wide elected officials usually need to be included in these conversations too. A first responder app can do all that and more.
2. Initiate a First Responder App
Facing a crisis without the right tools puts everyone at risk. A key part of disaster preparation is getting your agency set up with an intuitive communications and dispatch app, as well as an evacuation management app. They both need to be easy for teams to build chatrooms to address widespread concerns and send specific first responder alerts to smaller teams.
In addition, the apps need to go far beyond the standard FEMA announcements for disaster response. It’s all about interoperability and clarity, and it’s all designed to improve the way you work. We know that leaders need a better way to direct their teams. We also know that everyone, on every level in an agency, would need a solution that’s easy to use.
Genasys Protect CONNECT and EVAC make onboarding simple. Even if you only have a few days to prepare for the emergency, you stand a good chance of getting everyone up to speed. Then you’ll be able to act fast when the worst hits.
3. Instantly Send Natural Disaster Alerts
Going with CONNECT and/or EVAC means you can update employees and the public with the latest intel instantly. This is critical for the types of storm warnings that come on fast. Information about severe thunderstorm events, flooding, tornado warnings, and hurricane warnings needs to be communicated instantly. Like texting, CONNECT is much more secure and totally compliant with the police communication requirements.
You need to send and receive updates whenever and wherever they are needed. That’s part of what makes an emergency alert app so valuable for first-responder alerts. CONNECT lets you access those conversations on any device, which means you can send and receive updates as soon as the disaster happens, no matter where you are. EVAC allows you to manage an evacuation event and communicate with the public, collaborating agencies, and the media as needed.
Help your region prepare by getting your solution set up today. Both CONNECT and EVAC are quick to adopt and let you invite guest users too. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to learn more or to schedule a demo.
