Emergency Notification Systems 1 st -96 Hours Workshop August 20 th 2014 Berkeley, California

M ANY to Choose From If you search the Internet for “emergency notification systems’” you will find a lot of them. I limit my comparison to (4) systems that are well known in the response community.

Notification Systems Cassidian (Cal OES Warning System, FEMA) EverBridge (Cal Nat’l Guard, USCG Auxiliary) PIER (USCG Public Affairs, RRT9 ) AtHOC (Coast Guard Alert Warning System)

Common Features Multiple modes of notification Phone, fax, page, , text message. AcknowledgementNotification asks contact to confirm receipt. Repeated notifications Notification repeats by all modes until acknowledgement is received. Text to voice conversion The original text notification is converted into a digital voice. Polling The contact can answer questions by pressing a number on the phone.

Other Points of Comparison Software hosting Where is the software hosted: locally on your server or remotely on the vendor’s server with access via the Internet? Updating the directory Are additions and changes to the directory made by your administrator (perhaps via an Excel spreadsheet), or can users log in an update their own contact information? Cost One-time setup fees and annual subscriptions.

Twitter

Twitter makes it easier to share information when it matters most. Twitter’s alerts site is available to government at all levels — local, national and international — as well as some national organizations such as the World Health Organization or American Red Cross. Users who sign up for the alerts receive notifications or text messages on their phones.

Cassidian

Used by Cal. Office of Emergency Services & FEMA. Point of contact Hosted on a Cal OES server behind a firewall. Cities and counties can gain access if the security of their IT system is adequate. Cal OES has 96 phone lines and can call 1,000 people in 20 minutes.

Cassidian Self Registration Portal. Unlimited messaging. Application Program Interface (API). Demo site available: Link

EverBridge Witt|O’Brien’s now owns EverBridge and PIER and is combining both.

EverBridge Users US EPA for COOP General Services Administration for COOP USCG Auxiliary USCG Area Maritime Security Cmte, Portsmouth, VA California National Guard

EverBridge Hosted at CenturyLink®, a leading TV, Internet & voice data provider. Accessed via Internet or Smart phone. Unlimited tagging to enable selective notifications. 2-way communications with contact.

EverBridge EverBridge provides an application program interface (API) that enables partners to add emergency notification functionality without the need to write any code. NC4 is a partner that can provide feeds to report 200 incident types around the country.

EverBridge A private portal can be branded to the USCG to provide self-registration by invitation only. A name, and unique ID number are required for each. A public portal allows unlimited self-registration. 27 possible contact paths/contact. ( , phone, fax…).

EverBridge EverBridge charges by the size of the primary database of contacts. Cost includes unlimited communications. Sub-accounts enable you to keep sets of data separate.

EverBridge No extra charge for True SMS (text messages), SMTP ( ), & SMPP (telephone). Phone numbers are automatically resolved to the carrier, which is important if the user changes carriers but keeps their phone number. Without this feature the SMS message is not received at the new carrier or recipient.

EverBridge Includes a Mobile Manager Application for Smartphone & Android. GPS tagging of photos, video, voice messages & comments made with a cell phone.

EverBridge (5) postal addresses per contact. Unlimited message templates. Unlimited notification templates. Text to speech conversion for notifications by phone. 2-way polling allows us to get answers from contacts to answer multiple questions: Did you get this message? Are you responding now? Can you respond later? Are you going to the Incident Command Post?

PIER Systems Witt|O’Brien’s now owns EverBridge and PIER and is combining both.

PIER Users USCG Public Affairs BP during D EEPWATER H ORIZON Canadian gov’t for ships to report casualties & oil spills Los Angeles Water & Power Port of Long Beach US Navy Regions SW & NW EPA Region 9 US Army Fort Hood & Fort Bragg.

PIER Has add-ons for mapping Includes the following tools: – multi-modal mass notification tools – inquiry management – web site complete with workflow to enable self- publishing and complete audit/reporting capabilities GeoEnabled message targeting defined by street address, radius from a specific point, and zip code.

PIER Contacts can self register, be added via uploaded CSV file or via an API to client data base. System users must be added by system administrator but can update their own contact info. Can message to defined groups or to ‘Smart’ groups that are built based on tags assigned to contacts. PIER’s Inquiry Management toolset tracks two-way communications between correspondents who send messages from the PIER web site to resolution and keeps statistics: issue, time to close, etc.

PIER™ from Witt|O’Briens Top half of contact form.

PIER™ from Witt|O’Briens Bottom half of contact form.

PIER™ from Witt|O’Briens Searching by keyword.

PIER™ from Witt|O’Briens Uses Smart Groups to send messages to specific contacts. This contact is tagged with the keyword “LOFR”.

AtHOC

Used by Department of Defense and by USCG. An administrator adds contacts by uploading an Excel™ spreadsheet. Does not allow contacts to log in and update their own contact information. Updates are made via the local administrator and from data syncs from the USCG’s personnel database.

AtHOC Creates subsets or groups as needed to send specific messages to different groups. Keeps contacting until contact acknowledges. Logs all notifications: who was called, at what numbers, at what address, who acknowledged and when.

AtHOC The Coast Guard’s installation of AtHoc is called the Alert Warning System. AWS is required for all CG units. Other systems are not authorized. See COMDINST The system is hosted on servers at the USCG Operations System Center behind a firewall. It is only accessible via CG workstations or CG RAS with a Common Access Card (USCG ID). USCG Headquarters (CG-FAC) covers the cost of licenses.

AtHOC Will the USCG allow Sector San Francisco to use different notification software?

Overall Comparison & Cost

Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for U.S. Emergency Notification Services Gartner Analyst(s): Roberta J. Witty, John Girard, Jeff Vining, & Catherine H. Goldstein.

Cost Comparison ProductSetupAnnual Fee AtHOCUSCG has license already. Cassidian 1,500 recipients $12,500 EverBridge$953$11,900 Sub-Accounts $425 ea PIER Approx. $12,500 (via GSA) NIST (via GSA) $22, Non-NIST (via GSA) $13,108.52

Hardware & Staff Requirements If we invest in this type of software, we need a reliable connection to the Internet even during blackouts and other system interruptions. Our Internet connection must support the multiple connections & locations we require. This hardware must be accessible anywhere in the SSF AOR, even when roads are blocked (as after an earthquake). And, we need the staff to operate & maintain it.

Questions? Susan Krala Regional Response Team Coordinator USCG 11 th District (drm) (510)

Questions for the Breakout What critical feature(s) do you want the notification software to have? How much preference would you give to a tool that is already used by one of the larger partner agencies? Which agency(ies) should own and maintain the software?