COLUMBUS, Ohio, Dec. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- On January 9, 2008 the
California Public Utilities Commission will hold a Workshop on
"Communication Issues and Best Practices Post-Socal Firestorm."
James Kennedy, founder and CEO of Twenty First Century Communications,
will serve on two of five panel discussions at the CPUC workshop. Mr.
Kennedy will discuss "How Notification System Vendors Responded/Best
Practices" and "Next Steps for Improvement."
What: Panel discussions featuring telecommunications companies, city
and government officials, and others discussing communication
issues and best practices learned during the firestorms.
When: Wednesday, January 9, 2008; 9:30 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Where: Caltrans District 11 Building, 4050 Taylor St., San Diego
Draft Agenda
Twenty First Century Communications (TFCC) provides the Emergency
Notification System used by San Diego County. During the recent wildfires,
TFCC made over 300,000 evacuation calls in the San Diego area - a key
element of California's proactive, coordinated disaster response. TFCC
performed seven geo-targeted alerting campaigns, beginning with
notifications to plan for precautionary evacuation, and following with
voluntary and mandatory evacuations. With TFCC's help, San Diego's
coordinated evacuation effort remained ahead of the fires, kept traffic
under control, and got residents to safety.
TFCC continues to support San Diego County with measures to facilitate
flood warnings in the many burn areas resulting from the fires. TFCC
uploaded custom map data to the County's system, including Flood-Debris map
layers and a Firestorm Perimeter layer. On November 30, TFCC issued six
Flood Alert Advisory alert campaigns for the San Diego County Office of
Emergency Services.
TFCC's Universal Communications System (UCS) is an automated phone
system, which sends recorded messages to phone numbers en masse, listed and
unlisted, in various geographically defined calling areas. If the system
gets a busy signal, it can keep ringing until someone, or at least an
answering machine, picks up the call. San Diego County's system, dubbed
Alert San Diego, includes a public facing web page enabling citizens to
"opt-in" and register their notification preferences, such as cellular,
text, VoIP and TTY/TDD. TFCC provides emergency notification to several
other California cities and counties, the American Red Cross, the Ohio
State University, and over 200 public safety agencies and 80 major electric
utilities across the U.S.
Success Stories
On September 29, 2006, Twenty First Century performed a map-based alert
for the Frankfort, KY EMA, helping stop a kidnapper and safely recover a
missing child. When severe winter 2006 storms knocked out power to Nebraska
Public Power District customers, NPPD used UCS to call 6,280 customers,
informing them of rolling blackouts necessary to support power restoration
efforts. During a 2006 summer drought, Forsyth County in Georgia used UCS
to reach 95,199 households with water usage restrictions. In April 2007,
the Hilliard, Ohio Police Department made calls with TFCC's system,
alerting residents to a hostage situation in progress. They were able to
inform the citizens surrounding the site, without alerting the suspect. In
2005, TFCC operated the 1-877-LOVED1S hotline for the American Red Cross
after Hurricane Katrina, handling over 380,000 calls and helping to reunite
over 40,000 displaced friends and family members.
SOURCE Twenty First Century Communications
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Related links:
http://www.tfcci.com
CONTACT:
Ellen Grevey, Director of Corporate
Communications of Twenty First Century Communications,
+1-614-442-1215 ext. 262, fax: +1-614-442-1180,
ellen.grevey@tfcci.com
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