Developing and Testing an Emergency Notification System for a County Emergency Management Agency

Abstract

This study briefly reviews literature, news and reports dealing with emergency notification and then discusses lessons learned by way of observation during development and testing of an emergency notification system (ENS) for Maricopa County, Arizona prior to and during a county-wide, multi-agency functional exercise. This exercise, dealing with flood response, took place under the auspices of the Maricopa County Department of Emergency Management (MCDEM). MCDEM assumed responsibility during this exercise to test the functionality of a newly purchased commercial automated ENS, Communicator! NXT, made by Dialogic Communications Corporation, now PlantCML, and test its associated implementation. The exercise was designed to involve many different local agencies and as many as several dozen contacts per notification message tested. The study focuses on what can be learned outside of existing published literature about the development and testing of the ENS for activating emergency management personnel and achieving a common operating picture for all stakeholders. The study discusses a number of problems identified during the pre-exercise preparation period and during the exercise, as well as the resolution of these problems.