How Ventura County prepares for earthquakes and other disruptive events with Everbridge

Last week, citizens of Southern California were delivered yet another startling wake-up call when a magnitude-5.1 earthquake ripped across Orange County. The temblor came on the heels of a magnitude-4.4 earthquake in Encino that registered as the largest reported earthquake in the Los Angeles area in the past four years.

In addition to waking up citizens and making headlines, the quakes serve as an important reminder that temblors can occur at any time. According to the Los Angeles Times, the magnitude-4.4 quake “surprised seismologists because it was the strongest to hit directly under the Santa Monica Mountains in the 80 years” since they began recording the events in Southern California.

If there was another silver lining to emerge from the newsworthiness of last week’s quake, it was the emphasis placed on the importance of earthquake preparation in Southern California. A website established by the city of Los Angeles, www.ReadyLA.org, prepares residents by explaining that “most of the time, life goes on here in L.A. without incident. But when calamity strikes… don’t panic! Know where your disaster survival kit is and, if necessary, where your nearest emergency shelter is located.”

We couldn’t agree more, and, as a Glendale, California-based business, we take pride in preparing many businesses and local governments across the region to communicate effectively during these types of critical events. One example is Ventura County, home to a population of 850,000 culturally and ethnically diverse individuals. Our team recently put together a case study that details how Ventura County is but one example of how local governments and their municipalities can leverage our Unified Critical Communication Suite to be better prepared, make better decisions, and respond quickly and confidently during disruptive events. Here is a quick excerpt of our Q&A with Ventura County’s Program Administrator, Patrick Maynard. We asked Patrick why he chose Everbridge, and he took it from there!

Q: Why did Ventura County choose Everbridge?

A: Ventura County chose Everbridge to reliably communicate to and gain situational intelligence from their more than 830,000 residents. As part of their Everbridge mass communication platform, Ventura now offers a “VC Alert” citizen Web portal, that provides residents with an advanced opt-in webpage that allows them to personalize which alerts they receive from officials and on which devices they receive them. Everbridge was selected over other providers for its performance, near infinite scalability and interactive communications capabilities.

There’s more where that came from, so please visit here for our full Q & A with Patrick to learn more about how the county encourages residents to sign up for alerts, handles messaging to a diverse demographic, and more.