Get text alerts on your mobile phone

The Porirua Emergency Management Office uses Twitter as one of the ways it sends out emergency alerts to the public. These can be received as SMS text messages.

Text alerts are free, but signing up will cost you four texts at your standard rate.

Unfortunately, if you're on 2Degrees, you won't be able to receive them. Sorry!

You will receive a few test messages a year and any other message will be a real alert.

Alerts may include:

• major road closures


• major water or power outages


• severe weather warnings


• tsunami warnings


• earthquake information on local quakes


• and any other large emergencies

If you receive an emergency alert, forward it to your friends.

Sign up now!

Wait for a reply after each text sent. If you already receive tweets to your mobile phone, go to step 5.

1. Text the word "start" to 8987.



2. Reply with the word "signup".



3. Think of a unique username. (You won't need to remember it again, so you could use your name followed by some random characters, eg "Jim456bob".)



4. Reply with your chosen username. (If you are already on Twitter, use your existing username and it will ask you for your password)



5. Send / Reply "follow poriruaemo" to 8987.

A new builidng would be nice!

"The people in charge of organising the response to a civil emergency in Porirua are based in buildings that might not be useable after an earthquake. "

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-earthquake/4730026/Wellington-disaster-centres-on-shaky-ground

It's true, we don't have a purpose-built building designed to withstand an earthquake like the one that struck Christchurch (mind you, a peak ground accelleration of 2.2 times gravity is more than even the current building code allows for). We can dream of working out of an indestructable building, but the ratepayers have to indicate that this is important enough that they are willing to bear the cost.

The fact that our building may be unusable is one of the reasons why we have a completely portable system - we can work out of a marquee in the middle of a paddock if we have to.

All of our two-way radios come in robust suitcases and each run from a charged battery that will last for up to 24 hours, or they can be plugged into a generators, or run off a car battery, or use the 9V plug in the car.

Our laptops are also stored in similar suitcases, so we can pull then from the rubble if we have to, they will run off their batteries until we get the generator going. Staff can also bring in their own laptops and connect if required.

The new Emergency Management Information System runs over the internet, so when we lose access to land-based broadband we can either switch to mobile broadband, or plug in our satellite unit, which also gives us phone capability through Voice Over IP (VOIP).

And of course if all technology fails, paper & pencils will still get the job done!

This post is brought to you by the letters BGAN

Ah, the wonders of modern technology!

This post is made possible by our new BGAN satellite unit. With this we are no longer completely reliant on phone lines, or mobile phone networks for our connection to the internet. In fact, with the ability for the unit and laptops to run on battery power, and the unit providing its own wireless network, we can function for a couple of hours at least with no cables at all! We can also use it as a satellite phone.

With the new Emergency Management Information System being web based, having a back-up connection to the internet for when the phone lines go down is quite important, and the BGAN unit is just the ticket.

Listen for the sting

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3757461/Civil-Defence-unveils-new-alarm-sting

Actually, despite that headline, it's not a "new" sting alarm at all, it's the same old one, which most people probably don't recognise anymore.

Here's the Ministry's media release.

Civil defence emergency “sting” broadcast on radio

From Monday (31 May 2010) people might hear electronic civil defence emergency alarms on their radios.

The Director of Civil Defence Emergency Management, John Hamilton, said that at first the alarms will be new radio commercials. Later, they could be the alarm signalling an emergency public safety message.

Mr Hamilton said the Ministry has made the commercials to help people recognise the distinctive electronic “sting” that radio stations will use before broadcasting official civil defence emergency messages.

What has been found overseas is that where there is no clear signal or alarm, public safety messages blend into the surrounding advertising and programming.

“That had tragic consequences in the Victorian bush fires,” Mr Hamilton said. “In the aftermath, authorities learned that many people did not respond to evacuation and other messages broadcast on their radios because they ‘heard’ them as commercials or other programmes, not as official warnings.”

In Victoria use of an alarm before a civil defence message is broadcast on the radio has now been made mandatory.

“We have not gone that far in New Zealand,” Mr Hamilton said. “We have worked with Radio New Zealand, The Radio Broadcasters’ Association, Radio Live and The Radio Network. They all take their emergency responsibilities seriously and have told us they want public safety messages to be as clear as possible.

“We are happy to look at how we could work with other broadcasters too.”

The Ministry has existing memorandums of understanding with radio and television broadcasters to broadcast official messages during emergencies.

Get Ready Get Thru

The new radio commercials promoting the “sting” are part of the Ministry’s Get Ready Get Thru public education programme. The next step of the campaign is three weeks of radio and television advertising starting on television on Sunday, 30 May 2010, and on radio on Monday, 31 May 2010.

New radio commercials can be heard on the downloads page of the Get Ready Get Thru website, and will feature:

• The “sting” – the alarm radio stations can play before official civil defence messages.
• The natural warnings of a local tsunami – a tsunami caused by an earthquake near the coast could arrive within minutes, long before a formal warning could be issued. People need to know the natural warnings that might come before a local tsunami.
• Have a battery-powered radio. If there are power cuts during an emergency a battery powered radio is likely to be the only way many people would receive official messages.
• Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Samoan and Hindi language on ethnic radio. The Get Ready Get Thru website can already be viewed in nine different languages, English, Te Reo, Samoan, Tongan, Korean, simplified and traditional Chinese, Hindi and Arabic.

Existing commercials will continue to be broadcast. They promote the need to have emergency items and water to last at least three days and an emergency plan that includes what to do when not at home as well as at home.

“The message throughout our campaign – in the advertising, schools’ resources, Yellow Pages notices, and all our other promotions – remains consistent,” Mr Hamilton said:

“Get ready now so you can get through.”

New emergency management information system

We've been holding off on buying a fancy computerised system for managing emergencies here in Porirua, as we knew there were plans for a new system at the national level, and consistency is really quite important.

And finally, a decision has been made. This is from today's media release:

Minister of Civil Defence John Carter today announced that E-Sponder will supply an electronic emergency management information system (EMIS) for use in the National Crisis Management Centre (NCMC) and by civil defence authorities.

The NCMC, below ground under the Beehive, is designed to be a national operations centre. From there the responses of the hundreds of organisations likely to be involved in a large scale emergency can be co-ordinated and a national emergency can be managed.

“This EMIS will help us to better manage emergencies,” Mr Carter says. “It will allow us to more quickly and accurately create, and then keep up to date, what is known as a ‘common operating picture’. We use that to ensure that all agencies involved have the same understanding of the situation, who is doing what, where resources are and what decisions are being made.

“That means we will have a faster, better co-ordinated response and, ultimately, a safer, more resilient country.”

Mr Carter said that E-Sponder is an off-the-shelf system already used by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, in the Australian federal government and by some United States state and county governments to manage information during emergencies.

We can expect to start seeing it mid-2010.

How's your back-up plan coming along?

Many Telecom XT customers have been left hanging today, with "an unplanned restart" of Telecom's Christchurch XT Mobile RNC switch (whatever that is), which resulted in the majority of XT cell sites south of Taupo not operating from around 6am.

So, how'd you fare without your precious cellphone? Did business grind to a halt? How much money did you not make today because of that simple little disruption?

There is no guarrantee of service, even at the best of times, so have you thought about how your business can carry on functioning without the cellphones working? How about if none of the phones are working? Or if the power goes out? Or if your computer network goes down for the whole day? How are you going to do your job? Have a think. And if there isn't a way to do your job without these things, have enough insurance to cover your losses during such times.