Five Communication Tools to Prepare for Natural Disasters
Unpredictable, potentially life-threatening events — including wildfires, severe weather, tornadoes, and earthquakes — can occur anywhere at any given moment.
Most recently, Southern California experienced a series of devastating wildfires aggravated by drought conditions, low humidity, and hurricane-force Santa Ana winds, which have reached 100 miles per hour in some places.
An effective crisis communication plan is crucial for ensuring safety and maintaining business continuity in a natural disaster, regardless of your organization's location. To help you better prepare for natural disaster emergencies, we’ve provided five examples of communication tools you should consider incorporating into your mass notification system (MNS).
1. Weather Monitoring
Staying informed about severe weather isn’t always an easy task. Oftentimes, it requires actively seeking out weather updates through the weather channel, a weather radio, or a weather app, and those updates may not always be reliable.
The Alertus ThreatWatcher™ can simplify weather monitoring by integrating weather feeds from AccuWeather Skyguard®, Severe Weather Warnings, and the NWS to broadcast real-time weather updates and up-to-the-minute, site-specific warnings.
2. Outdoor Warning
An organization’s emergency alerting process should be efficient and seamless, as time is of the essence during a natural disaster.
However, creating urgency and spreading vital information without causing panic within a large outdoor environment can be difficult. Organizations can disseminate critical information to an outdoor population by implementing a giant outdoor voice system.
The Alertus High Power Speaker Arrays (HPSA) instantly sends clear outdoor voice messages using audible siren tones and industry-leading text-to-speech (TTS) technology. Remember that your emergency notifications must be intelligible and informative to elicit an immediate response.
Alertus’ Mobile High Power Speaker Array (MHPSA) offers the same alerting capabilities as the HPSA but with the bonus of functioning on a mobile trailer. The mobile HPSA is designed to be pulled with a standard trailer hitch to your desired communication area and set up by one person within 15 minutes after arriving on the scene, making it an ideal solution for immediate natural disaster notification.
3. One-touch Activation
In the face of a natural disaster, the last thing anyone wants is to lose valuable time deploying disparate notification systems. By utilizing an MNS with a trustworthy, single point of activation capability, you can activate all emergency notification endpoints.
Alertus offers a wide range of one-touch activation options for emergency notification at the push of a button:
A single activation point is vital for mitigating harm and reducing emergency response times when it matters the most.
4. Mobile Alerting
Mobile notifications allow you to reach your intended audience, even when they’re away from their desks or not checking email. From push notifications to full Alertus System activation, AlertAware® Mobile helps avoid notification delays or disruptions during a time-sensitive natural disaster when a spike in cellular network usage is likely.
Easily account for personnel during a crisis through incident reporting, photo upload, location tracking, and integrated two-way chat features.
For some areas, Alertus’ Cell Broadcasting is a good alternative for immediately sending a notification to any mobile device within a specific geolocation. With a cell broadcasting-based notification, you can send bulk messages simultaneously to multiple mobile devices within a targeted location without needing individual phone numbers or subscribers.
5. Unified Organizational Communication
Business disruptions are inevitable during natural disasters. However, a handful of notification methods can help reduce panic, maintain a regular flow of communication, and keep everyone on the same page amid chaotic and nerve-racking circumstances.
Unlike emails that could get lost in a crowded inbox, desktop notifications capture attention immediately with a visible, easy-to-read pop-up message directly on a desktop computer. The Alertus Desktop™ Notification can use full-screen or partial-screen computer desktop notifications or a less intrusive ticker alert at the top of the screen.
While mother nature is unpredictable, these resilience communication tools can help you protect your community and business as best as possible during a natural disaster.
Originally Posted 04/19/21 by Stephanie Osorno, Marketing Copywriter at Alertus Technologies
Revised 01/22/25 by Kat Wilkerson, Senior Content Marketing Specialist, Alertus Technologies