- 1). Analyze your contact needs. You may need to contact people outdoors and indoors. They may or may not have television, radio, weather radio, cell or phone service. The methods will need to serve those with special needs, such as sight or hearing impairment. Options include telephone, radio, television, computer-assisted and data products and visual or manual communication devices.
- 2). Choose your methods. Include reliable backups and tiered responses. For instance, although you might post signs throughout a campground prone to flash floods to educate visitors to the possibility, when flood threatens, activating outdoor sirens and lights and making announcements on a public address system alerts visitors to the imminent threat.
- 3). Install the communication systems. This may require temporarily taking down existing communications or interrupting computer use to install software.
- 4). Test the system. Ensure the main and backup systems function as expected. Inform citizens in advance of the test and provide a feedback method for citizens to inform you if the test fails and they do not receive the warning as expected.
- 5). Create and disseminate the warning message when an emergency occurs using the appropriate methods to the situation. If the main system fails, activate the backups.
next post