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State and local government critical communications: “Best of 2015” Everbridge quotes
Best of 2015: Public Safety and Law Enforcement Critical Communications
Our team prides itself on our long term work with all of our customers, but our pedigree in state and local government lends us extra satisfaction when we look back on the successful year that was 2015. The past year highlighted how critical it is to leverage a notification system to communicate with residents during all types of events–from the routine, to the confusing to the harrowing. With 2016 coming soon, we compiled some of our “best of” 2015 quotes, inclusions and testimonials from our partners, employees and customers. You’ll see several themes persist–the importance of community engagement in rallying neighbors to find missing the children, the robustness of our solution, and more.
Thanks for taking some time to reflect — here goes!
1. “Arguably the most important reason why we chose Everbridge is that it is one comprehensive system that we can integrate into our daily operations and use for both internal and external critical communications.”
-Soraya Sutherlin, Emergency Services Manager, City of Torrance
Instantaneous Event Communication and Community Engagement | City of Torrance
2. “The ability to quickly find the missing girls was just wonderful. I think we just have a unique mixture for success…true community partnership in combination with a great engagement product from Nixle.”
-Tracy Gonzalez, Public Information Officer, San Angelo Police Department
Critical Communication and Community Engagement | San Angelo Police
3. “For Pope Francis’ historic visit to Philadelphia, the Community Engagement platform was successful in helping us obtain many resident and visitor opt-ins in a very short amount of time. We were able to generate over 11k opt-in’s in just a few days—by comparison, it took almost 8 years for us to amass 15k Twitter followers! Clearly, this is a powerful and highly visible tool that helps us reach citizens quickly and effectively.”
–Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management
Customer Spotlight | Community Engagement in Philadelphia for Pope Francis’ Historic Visit
4. “In terms of our jurisdictions, the Everbridge platform makes the lives of our leaders much easier. They spend less time on the telephone answering calls or listening to concerns during critical events. They can get information out to the community from their iPhones with the click of button, as opposed to having to travel to their office to send the message out. It’s a huge time saver.”
–Sulayman Brown, Assistant Coordinator, Fairfax County Office of Emergency Management
Regional Communications and Community Engagement | National Capital Region
5. “During our test last year (in September), it took less than 30 seconds to log in, select a message and dispatch that message. Within 20 seconds all devices had been activated using one interface (in that case it was, Alertus). This integration means that public safety doesn’t have to take any time to think about what system is used for what, then log into one and send, then log into another and send. It’s all in one place, with one send, for all devices.”
–Lynn B. Daley, M.Sc., CEM®, Director of Business Continuity, Rochester Institute of Technology
Critical Communications in Higher Education | Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT)
6. “The use of Everbridge system prevented a tragedy from occurring, potentially saving a life that night. If that is the only message we send out the whole year, then it’s worth every penny.”
–Ed Reuter, Emergency 911 Director, Bartholomew County (in response to a missing child case)
Emergency Preparedness and Communications | Bartholomew County
7. “‘Right now the main function we’re using it for is emergencies.’ Sara Bustilloz, the spokesperson for the City of Midland, said. ‘So if we have a wildfire, if we have a bomb threat and we have to evacuate an area or to just let people know if we’re going to perform a drill in their area to not be concerned when they see that…Sometimes storms happen and our phones get flooded and we get phone calls about how we’re prepared and we already are, so we want to let people know about what’s going on out there…It’s just a really effective way to contact each other instead of the old fashioned calling tree, we can now reach everybody at once, so it’s been great,’ Bustilloz said.”
-Sara Bustilloz, City of Midland Spokesperson
Midland Encourages Residents to Sign Up for Everbridge
8. “Leclerc stated that Everbridge was an important step toward ensuring that a clear communications channel was available to the citizens of East Hartford. ‘The last line of communication we have would be through a messaging system,’ Leclerc said. ‘Purchasing the Everbridge system enabled us to be in touch with our residents at any time, with the stroke of a few fingers and even from our iPhones.'”
-Marcia A. Leclerc, East Hartford CT, Mayor
Mayor Accepts American Red Cross Award
9. “‘Average notifications may take 15 to 20 minutes to complete, but we are able to get messages out within five minutes using our templates. This saves us not only time, but reduces human errors as well, ensuring our message is delivered to the right people, at the right time,’ says Gil Zavlodaver, program administrator for Ventura County. The system was installed in 2011 and continues to be updated.”
-Gil Zavlodaver, Program Manager, Ventura County
California County Selects Emergency Notification System
10. “‘It’s important because we live and die by the phone these days. People have their cell phone on them all of the time and we want to be able to get the news out to them as quick as we can,’ said Pamela Casey. Nixle allows people to sign-up their phones and email accounts to receive messages from law enforcement agencies, county departments and city offices.”
-Pamela Casey, District Attorney, Blount County
Blount County Sees Benefit of Using Nixle Technology
11. “Everbridge had three components the others (Code Red and Civic Ready) did not,” Jacimore explained. “Everbridge is certified by the Department of Homeland Security, so they have priority communications in the event of a disaster. It provides multi-language text and voice. And through Everbridge a conference call could be conducted on the fly with the mayor, fire chief and police chief could all talk while en route to the 911 building in case of a disaster.”
-Lyn Jacimore, IT Director, City of Russellville, AR
Council Seeks Answers from Intermodal
12. “San Angelo Police issued a Nixle Alert for the missing girls, ages 5 and 10, at about 5:30 p.m. September 25 after they were reported missing from the 2000 block of N. Parkway,” said Tracy Gonzalez, public information officer for SAPD. “About 15 minutes later, a 32-year-old San Angelo woman who had just learned of the alert, noticed the girls walking in the area of N. Bishop and Guadalupe Streets. The citizen then called police and stayed with the girls until officers responded. The girls were unharmed and later reunited with family members.”
-Tracy Gonzalez, Public Information Officer, San Angelo Police Department
San Angelo Police Credit Nixle and the Community for Locating Missing Children
13. “While the search got underway, residents were notified via the Everbridge Mass Notification System about the missing child and were provided a description of what he was wearing. The information was also blasted out through the Oswego Police Department’s Facebook page. Police said residents were listening. According to police, numerous tips were received from residents who had seen and noticed the boy after receiving the Everbridge notification.”
Missing Oswego Boy Found in Aurora
14. “’We have used the CodeRED Emergency Notification System in the past but we have found the Everbridge System offers better functionality for notifying the public,” said Derrick McPherson, Emergency Management Coordinator. “Different methods of communication, such as texts, emails, and phone calls will allow us to keep citizens better informed of emergency and non-emergency events as they happen.”
-Derrick McPherson, Emergency Management Coordinator, Plainview, TX
City to Switch from CodeRED Alert System to Everbridge Notification System
< a href=”http://www.myplainview.com/”> www.myplainview.com
15. “Everbridge excels at near real-time communication, and we look forward to adding their innovative services to our incident response protocol, as we continue to enhance our internal and external communication systems,” said Miami-Dade Aviation Director Emilio T. González.
-Emilio T. González, Miami-Dade Aviation Director
Miami International Airport Selects Everbridge to Deliver Critical Communications
16. “Trust and transparency begins with regular, open communication between officials and residents. Everbridge and Nixle continue to add a new dimension to the public safety conversation by enabling our community to be better connected and share and receive information in real-time, improving the way we work together to improve safety and engagement.”
-Chris Bolton, Lieutenant, Oakland PD
Everbridge Integrates Community Outreach and Emergency Management in New Community Engagement Solution
17. “From managing large crowds at major events to daily ensuring the safety of those who live near and use our local National Parks, the ability to efficiently keep people informed is critical to the mission of the United States Park Police. Now, by simply texting USPPDC to 888777 from a cell phone, those who visit or live near our National Parks or use our Parkways can receive timely and relevant information to traffic, crime, and safety conditions.”
-Teresa Chambers, Chief of the United States Park Police
United States Park Police Deploy New Public Emergency Alert and Notification Tool
18. “This is another example of how an engaged community is our best asset. The Nixle system provided the woman’s picture and description allowing the number of searchers to go from several dozen to several thousand in seconds.”
-Raymond Hayducka, Police Chief, City of South Brunswick, NJ
Missing Woman Found with Help of NIXLE Message
19. “Social media is another way that Anchorage PD connects and builds relationships with the residents of the community, and in the webinar, Jennifer mentioned that Nixle’s integration with her department Facebook and Twitter accounts makes it easy to publish a Nixle message to social media. During an event, when seconds count, it is essential to have a tool like Nixle that will save time. Nixle also eliminates the need to post the same message to multiple channels.”
-Jennifer Castro, Communications Director for the Anchorage Police Department
Anchorage Police Department Builds Trust and Transparency with Nixle
20. “The Rolla Police Department used the Everbridge mass notification system after receiving report of the missing boy. The advisory stated that the child had previously made statements that he would like to visit his mother in Arkansas, but Macormic said the boy was not carrying any bag or backpack.”
11-Year-Old Boy Found Safe Within an Hour
21. “The free program is called Nixle. It is free, and easy to sign up for. All you do is text your zip code to 888777. Kincaid says tools like Nixle could help in the situation of an active shooter, alerting everyone to leave, or stay away from the area.”
-Chief Hilton Kincaid, Head of Detroit Homeland Security
Detroit Rolls Out Emergency System in Wake of California Shootings
2015 saw great content production from our customers, employees and partners. As big year as a year that 2015 was for the Everbridge team, we hope 2016 is even better. If you’re interested in learning more about how we help, here are some of the best materials we feel we have produced over the year, too:
Whitepaper – 9 Social Media Best Practices for Law Enforcement Training Drills Kit –
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