News

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 Lucas, 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

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.

In the WV state capitol and throughout Kanawha County, contact with responders and the public happens simultaneously, but on different W.A.R.N. networks.Kanawha County and Charleston, West Virginia, have expanded W.A.R.N. services under a multi-year agreement which includes public notification and command control mobilization services.Kanawha County and Charleston, West Virginia, have expanded W.A.R.N. services under a multi-year agreement which includes public notification and command control mobilization services.Kanawha County and Charleston, West Virginia, have expanded W.A.R.N. services under a multi-year agreement which includes public notification and command control mobilization services.

See the Video Here: http://66.129.116.75/news/charleston_WMV.htm

Kanawha County (Charleston WV Capital Area) At A Glance:

County Population: 200,073
County Houses: 93,788
Land area: 903.1 sq. mi.
Water area: 7.9 sq. mi.

Click Here for Story:

http://66.129.116.75/pdf/Charleston-We%20Have.pdf

Napa County, California - Emergency services personnel recently selected W.A.R.N. to provide multiple integrated applications to protect the citizens of the county. 

Napa decided on three W.A.R.N. applications integrated into a custom suite: GeoPowered, Broadcast and Command. 

W.A.R.N. GeoPowered provides web-enabled GIS mapping tools tied to W.A.R.N. Broadcast, a powerful public notification platform. 

With the use of W.A.R.N. Command, Napa securely distributes 1^st responder mobilization and

notification technology across more than a dozen different public safety organizations across the county. 

About Napa County
Napa County is located North of the San Francisco Bay area.  Famous for award winning vineyards, fabulous restaurants, spas and scenery, Napa has grown into a bustling community of nearly 150,000.  These residents are distributed primarily around the county’s five major cities:  Napa, Calistoga, St. Helena, Yountville and American Canyon.  Each with it’s own unique flavor, these cities form a diverse and vibrant community.   

About W.A.R.N. LLC
W.A.R.N. brings over 20 years of network, communication and secure application management experience to the table offering compelling advantages over any other available call or contact system now in use. These advantages are measured in immediate availability, scope of performance and features, cost of acquisition, and cost of operation. W.A.R.N. is the only true fully web-based system giving users access and controls to enterprise dialing and data servers they could never own or install locally, with multiple network providers and a variety of methods of activation including web, telephone, email, text messaging and automated “no touch” launch via other software triggers.

Prince George’s County’s Office of Homeland Security’s rapid-alert system made 35,000 phone calls to residents and businesses within a 2-mile radius of Laurel Regional Hospital on Jan. 2 after an armed prisoner overpowered guards and escaped from the hospital. 

The county’s Wide Area Rapid Notification system, or ‘‘WARN,” made the calls within seven minutes after Kelvin Poke, a Jessup Correctional Institution inmate, wrested a gun from a correctional officer, then carjacked a vehicle during his escape bid.Later that day, police shot and killed Poke during an exchange of gunfire at the Washington National Cemetery in Suitland. Poke was serving a life sentence plus 40 years for kidnapping, robbery and carjacking.

‘‘Prior to WARN, we had to rely on media outlets and so forth” to tell residents and businesses of a crisis, said Vernon Herron, the county’s homeland security director. ‘‘With WARN, in a matter of seven minutes we dialed 35,000 phone numbers. It’s really a helpful tool for … manmade and natural disasters.”

Herron said the Prince George’s Office of Homeland Security has a million listed and unlisted landline phone numbers in the WARN system, which was installed in 2002.

‘‘We sent a recorded message saying that a state prisoner had escaped from the Laurel Regional Hospital, then gave a description and told them to call us if they had any information,”he said.

Another phone alert was sent out after Poke was caught. Residents and businesses do not have to sign up for WARN, Herron said. If they have a landline in the affected area, they will receive a call.

Herron said the phone system, whose list is updated semi-annually, works well but has one major caveat — people with caller-identification systems on their home phones may believe the number that comes up when WARN calls is the number of a solicitor and not answer.

This is the second time that WARN, which is also used by the federal Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has been used in the county.

On the first occasion a year ago, an inmate being transported escaped custody in Largo, Herron said.

He said the decision to set up the system was made after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

‘‘In light of our nation’s homeland security concerns, we needed a way to notify residents if there [was] an emergency,” Herron said.

LAUREL, MD — Police were searching in the nation’s capital Wednesday for a prisoner who overpowered two guards at a suburban Washington hospital, shot a driver and fled in his car, officials said.

Wide Area Rapid Notification (W.A.R.N.) was activated in a 2-mile radius from the facility, notifying approximately 30,000 households in the area of the potential danger from the armed hospital escapee.

The incident began shortly after noon Tuesday, after Jessup Correctional Institution inmate Kelvin Poke, 45, complained of chest pains, Maryland State Police said in a news release.

Poke, who was serving life plus 40 years on kidnapping, carjacking and robbery convictions, was accompanied by two guards from the maximum-security facility to Laurel Regional Hospital, about eight miles away, where he was admitted, said Greg Shipley, a spokesman for the Maryland State Police.

About 8:15 a.m. Wednesday, on the fourth floor of the hospital, the prisoner “overpowered a correctional officer” and took his .38-caliber revolver, Shipley said.

Poke, who was not wearing handcuffs, then fired the weapon to free himself from his leg shackles, Shipley added.

Police found the stolen car shortly before 1 p.m. in Washington and shifted the focus of the search there.

The Emergency Management Agency of Jefferson County, AL (Birmingham) has contracted for the entire suite of W.A.R.N. services that will serve two-thirds of a million citizens in the region.

Under the agreement, Jefferson County EMA will orchestrate 75 entities including the County IT Department, Public Safety, Public Works and 37 cities onto a W.A.R.N. platform utilizing a full suite of services including W.A.R.N. Continuity, W.A.R.N. Command, W.A.R.N. Broadcast, W.A.R.N. Geo-Powered (ESRI - GIS mapping), W.A.R.N. Consulting and other professional services.

The agreement also lets additional Central Alabama counties join directly into the services for a small annual set-up and subscription fee. JeffCo EMA planned this to offer a wide range of communication, mobilization, planning and continuity tools for a fraction of the typical costs to Central Alabama counties.

Jefferson County at a Glance

Jefferson County (County Seat - Birmingham) is the most densely populated county in the State of Alabama. As of 2000 U.S. Census, the population of Jefferson County was 662,047. Jefferson County is the most populated and principal county in the Greater Birmingham area.

Jefferson County was established on December 13, 1819 by the Alabama legislature. It was named in honor of Thomas Jefferson. The county is located in the north-central portion of the state, on the sourthern extension of the Appalachians, in the center of iron, coal and limestone belt of the South. Jefferson County is bordered by Blount, Bibb, St. Clair, Shelby, Tuscaloosa, and Walker Counties. It encompasses 1,119 square miles.