Our first meeting of 2010 on January 13th. Kevin Ross, the Assistant Director for Technology at the New York State Emergency Management Office (SEMO) was the speaker.
SEMO developed the web based NY-ALERT to provide a robust alert and warning system that uses all known communications devises. The portal allows state agencies, county and local governments, emergency service agencies and institutions of higher learning to provide emergency information on a local, county, regional or statewide basis. Emergency alerting is a core mission of SEMO.
Previously, emergency notifications had to be created for each technology used, resulting in a time-consuming effort, delaying the dissemination of the message by up to an hour. Notifiers can now create the message once and NY-ALERT properly formats the message for up to 17 communication gateways simultaneously-including phone, email, SMS, IM, RSS feeds and website postings. The Notifier selects the target area and gateways to send the message.
Subscriber and notifier feedback led to the development of NY-ALERT Version 2.0, which includes hundreds of enhancement and security features. Version 2.0 debuted in September of 2009.
NY-ALERT now has more than 4.7 million subscribers. Additionally, more than a dozen NYS agencies, including the State Police, National Guard, Homeland Security and Consumer Protection Board use this free-of-charge system as do all of the campuses in the State University as well as the City University systems plus 39 counties.
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