Community Notification

Community Notification

 

The existing FM broadcast infrastructure, providing the community with continuous music and news, is the established backbone being utilized by Alert FM to provide a rapid community alerting and notification solution to small targeted groups of residents, to a city, or to an entire county. The notification is composed of an audible alert combined with a scrolling message that provides instructions on necessary actions to be taken. In most cases, this notification is delivered to the recipient within one minute. By design, most FM stations share one core attribute, their inherently disaster tolerance against catastrophic events. Even if one FM station temporarily stopped broadcasting, most urban areas are covered by several FM stations thereby providing a high degree of overlapping coverage. It is within this comprehensive infrastructure that Alert FM’s GSSNet operates to deliver highly reliable Radio Data Service (RDS) messaging to the HomeALERT series of RDS receivers.

To connect an existing FM station into this notification network, it is fitted with a GSSNet encoder. Once connected, all emergency manager originated messaging will be handled by MM through an API. Utilizing a redundant approach, the generated message is delivered through a satellite/internet combination to the GSSNet encoder for broadcast to the selected recipients with a HomeALERT receiver.

HomeALERT – a series of self-contained, event notification, FM RDS receivers providing the owner with local National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather alerts, Homeland Security notices, Amber Alerts, in addition to all other State and local critical alerts and messaging notifications generated by police, fire, emergency management, and government official departments. With an audible alarm as loud as 90dB and messaging strings as long as 240 characters, the resident is warned of a developing event, such as an approaching wildfire. Then, by way of the unit’s large LCD screen, instructions are issued directly to the resident to provide instructions on safe evacuation routes and subsequent planned staging areas.

Through an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) implementation, alarms and notification can also be delivered, by most of the HomeALERT receivers, utilizing an integrated strobe light and bed shaker relay combination, for the hard of hearing, and a text-to-speech option, for the hard of seeing.

     HomeALERT Receiver

 

        HomeALERT Wall Receiver

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

HomeALERT notification for the Community provides: 

  • Event Notification aligned with the unfolding event
  • Notification issued directly from the Operations Center by qualified EM’s
  • Notification broadcast over highly reliable FM infrastructure via GSSNet’s Emergency Warning System
  • 90dB alarm will draw attention to receipt of a new notification alert
  • Extensive battery backup allows the HomeALERT series of receivers to pick-up alerts and messages anywhere within the covered area, especially when recipient has been evacuated from residence
  • Up to 2 months of battery backup for the HomeALERT Receiver and 5 years for the HomeALERT Wall Receiver
  • Tied into the NOAA weather network – will receive NOAA issued weather alerts
  • ADA capable – will support the hard of hearing / hard of seeing community

CommunityALERT – a future web portal, designed for providing residents with current real time information on the fires location. The information will be a department “approved” version of the fire location data displayed within MM that is being utilized by the fire departments. Additional information will show evacuation routes, staging areas, in fact any and all specific information necessary to aid the residents into making informed decisions during the fire event to promote personal safety.

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