Pre-Warnable Situation

The city had been searching for a way to better equip staff members with the tools to keep them informed of emergencies and other situations. Previously, the city tried walkie-talkies, emails, group text messaging, and one-way mass notification systems. However, during emergency preparedness meetings, the issue of effectively disseminating and communicating emergency response plans and situations consistently arose. The head of emergency management for the city of Norwalk had been approached by almost every other existing provider, yet was still unsatisfied with what those providers had to offer. Given the responsibility over multiple buildings, there was a distinct need of the emergency management chief to be able to easily coordinate the response across structures. Also, due to the open-floor style layout of the city hall, it was of utmost importance to quickly reach all staff and equip them with the tools needed to respond, particularly given the scenario of a lockdown. With 11 different buildings, and no way to effectively communicate situational awareness amongst them, they turned to Warnable.

The Solution

Warnable created a solution designed specifically to meet the town’s needs. After speaking with the city’s stakeholders, Warnable created environments for each of the city buildings. The buildings then had the ability to report up to specific organization-level or first responder super-users depending on the event.

A list of super-admin, admin and user accounts was carefully designated for all staff in a manner that would enable swift communication but allow for screening / efficiency. Specific privileged users could trigger a city-wide alert within seconds, but other user-specific permissions meant that alerts could be verified at the building level before being escalated further. Alerts can also be made to require approval, or an administrative review before it goes to the intended audience.