A look back at how our customers managed critical events in 2017

With another year soon to be behind us, it’s time to take a look back and see what kind of lessons can be learned from the ways our customers managed various critical events throughout the year. It is also time to reflect on how extremely grateful we are to have such dedicated and innovative customers who push us to execute and make a difference each and every day! From wildfires to hurricanes, 2017 will go down in history for having some of the most devastating natural disasters in recent memory. But not every use of our technology is to pass along an evacuation order – there are dedicated city and town officials and public safety employees who use it in more local ways every day to engage with their communities. And, of course, customers leverage our Critical Event Management platform to maintain business resiliency in the face of unplanned events which threaten the continuity of operations. Here are some examples of how customers leveraged our platform in 2017.

• At the beginning of the year, our system was used in Fort Collins, Colorado to help rally local citizens to be on the lookout for an elderly woman who had gone missing from her residence. Within minutes from the alerts being sent (along with photos of the woman), two local residents recognized her and spotted her out walking in a neighborhood. She was found and returned home safely.
• Officials in Corsicana, Texas, used our system in a similar fashion to alert the local community that a man had gone missing for nearly 24 hours. Everbridge alerts were again used to disseminate information, and a good Samaritan was able to use this information to find and identify the missing man, getting him home safely.
• At Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory in Berkley, California, our system was used to lockdown the facilities due to suspicious criminal activity that occurred near the lab. Over the course of a five hour period, Everbridge was then used to facilitate communications between response team members to ensure the lockdown was enacted – and that the suspects were eventually identified and apprehended.

This past fall saw our country faced with some of the most devastating storms in history – most notably Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Harvey. States and counties across the affected areas used our Critical Event Management platform to deliver millions of messages, helping keep people informed and safe:

• Everbridge’s platform delivered over 20 million messages to communities and residents during Hurricane Irma alone.
• Over the course of Irma the number of individuals receiving alerts in the state of Florida grew to over 900,000 total opt-ins, with over 600,000 sign-ups during this period. In addition, the City of Tampa promoted opt-ins with keywords in both English and Spanish, which added over 64,000 to the total number of people receiving alerts.
• The Everbridge platform sent over 6 million messages to area residents during the Northern California and Wine Valley wildfires in October. More than 2 million messages have been sent thus far in relation to the December Southern California wildfires.

This past October and December our technology was also used to help residents stay informed and receive critical news during the wildfires that plagued California: Everbridge now serves over 3,500 communities, corporations and transportation hubs, including 8 of the top 10 U.S. cities, all 25 of the busiest North American Airports and the entire states of New York, Florida, Vermont and Connecticut. Over the course of the year, we have been on track to send out 2 billion messages – and almost doubled the number of registered contacts within the Everbridge system, growing to more than 190 million people (which is more than half of the total U.S. population). But don’t just take my word for it, let’s also take a quick look at a few of the things that our customers have said about Everbridge in 2017:

• “I don’t know of any other systems what Everbridge provides. After everything is set up, it’s incredibly easy to use and very user friendly. We now understand why Everbridge is used so extensively and by such large companies.” – Bill Anderson, Customer Relations Manager Glasgow Electric Plant Board
• “Due to its robustness, security and scalability, Everbridge was the clear choice to help bring our emergency notification efforts under one umbrella, ensuring we are able to coordinate with neighboring communities, share information and quickly reach people.” – Rob Robertson, Director of Tuscaloosa County Emergency Management Agency
• “Through Everbridge, with the push of a single button, we can locate the right on-call staff, automate notifications to emergency personnel to ensure staff safety and even reach clinical response teams on their mobile devices.” – Sherri Abendroth, Emergency Management Coordinator, Doctors Hospital at Renaissance Health System
• “To help keep track of its mobile workforce, Sanofi rolled out a newer feature from Everbridge called Safety Connection in the second quarter of 2016. ““Anything dealing with safety we’re really reactive to, so Everbridge provides us another means of communicating to keep our employees safe.” – Joe Blakeslee, security systems manager at Sanofi
• “Employees traveling to potentially questionable regions can activate the Safety Connection tool, which then prompts a check-in every five minutes, so the GSOC operator can monitor the employee’s position and know faster if something goes awry. “It’s life-saving equipment. What price can you put on life safety?” – Mark Terry, Director of Global Enterprise Security, Rackspace
• “For us to be able to send messaging out through Everbridge, 20 minutes before (the incident) shows up on open media, is a critically important anticipatory act, rather than a reactionary act.” – Alan Borntrager, Director, Global Security, Safety and Business Resilience

We here at Everbridge continue to be proud that our solution is used by so many, in such different ways, to keep people safe and businesses running…faster.