Mass Notification Systems
Communications Critical to Effective Emergency Response

Whether deadly explosions at industrial plants or oil refineries, shootings at federal courthouses and college campuses, or natural disasters, people are experiencing violent events like never before.

 Man-made or natural, these disasters are illusive, unpredictable and violent. They can take place anywhere, anytime. No matter the size or location of a facility, future disasters are not a matter of if, but when.

Today, facility managers are not only concerned about protecting their facilities, personnel and community from complex threats, but also complying with government mandates and codes. Several governing bodies have adopted codes and requirements for emergency communications systems, including the departments of Defense and Homeland Security; the National Fire Protection Association and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Is your Facility Prepared?

Mass Notification Systems (MNS), also known as an Emergency Communications Systems (ECS), provide the critical element to warn people if one of the facility security systems has been breached or safety has been compromised. Detection of a threat is necessary to generate timely alerts.

However, it is insufficient by itself. Interoperable communications among first responders and key facility personnel and the actual warning and take-action instructions to the affected public are the critical elements in savings lives and minimizing chaos.

What is a Mass Notification System? A MNS is designed to protect, alert and inform the public with clear instructions before, during, after an event. Communicating what to do in response to a threat, a MNS or ECS provides real-time information to people in a building, area, site or other space through recorded and live voice and visual messages.

From voice announcements inside buildings to emergency text messages on employee cell phones, today’s sophisticated Mass Notification Systems feature multi-layered communications. Instead of relying on just one technology to communicate critical information in an emergency, multiple communication channels allow facility managers to reach their entire facility, campus or community as well as target different audiences with specific instructions.

The multiple layers for effective emergency communication solutions include:
• Outdoor Wide-Area Mass Notification Systems;
• In Building Mass Notification Systems;
• Distributed Recipient Notification Systems, such as text messaging/SMS alerting, automated dialing systems, desktop notification, email messages.

Budgets do not always allow for multiple communication systems to be purchased at the same time. Scalability of systems is key to an organization’s growing needs. A modular and scalable MNS allows you to expand in phases, building the notification system one layer at a time, starting with an in-building or outdoor system or an emergency text alerting system, integrating the different layers as funds become available or expanding the system as your organization adds additional buildings or satellite offices.

Once the type of layer and technology is determined, it’s time to take a look at some of the hardware and software components of a comprehensive MNS solution:

• Central control unit of a MNS transmits emergency announcements as prerecorded or live (microphone) messages to audible devices as well as send commands to activate visual notification appliances;
• High powered speaker arrays for broadcasting voice messages tones and sirens, covering large areas with crisp intelligible warnings;
• Portable alerting systems are ideal for disaster alert for temporary buildings or a special event;
• Indoor voice evacuation systems provide supervised emergency voice communications, paging, background music, and messaging system;
• Explosion proof and hazardous location notification appliances can be used for process shutdown, alarm and emergency signaling and facility-wide alarm notification;
• Weatherproof notification appliances such as strobes, speakers, horns and horn strobes provide emergency signaling, condition signaling, security alert or emergency evacuation in outdoor environments;
• LED display signs provide visual messages in high ambient noise environments and also provide notification for the hearing-impaired;
• Emergency text messaging systems, web-based systems, can alert tens of thousands of personnel and the surrounding community. Alerts can be sent simultaneously to multiple devices, including email addresses, cell phones, pagers, and other wireless devices.

Automated Dialing Systems allow distribution of voice messages over landline, wireless, and VoIP phones to tens of thousands of recipients within minutes.

Desktop Notification Systems send realtime messages to computer desktops across enterprise network environments. To all personnel logged onto the network, this intrusive alert takes precedence on the screen and can activate sound upon delivery.

Due to grid power lost in times of crisis, all MNS components should be protected with battery back up. Other power options, which include solar panels and generators, should be considered to allow alerts to continue without interruption. With a distributed recipient notification system such as emergency text alerting, the system should be secured with a redundant data center. Facility administrators should be able to remotely activate critical MNS functions from a cell phone or laptop.

Integrated and Interoperable

The key to the effectiveness of emergency response time is interoperable emergency communication systems. There are three types of integration that are vital to emergency response time.

First, with limited staff and multiple communication systems to launch, facilities need an integrated Mass Notification System with a simplified, single interface to launch all of the different applications.

Developed by a single company and designed to work seamlessly together, MNS systems like Cooper Notification’s combines multiple communications systems – SAFEPATH indoor mass notification system, WAVES outdoor warning system, Roam Secure Alert Network (RSAN) emergency text and voice alerting and Cooper Desktop Alerting - into one integrated and customized solution. It allows facility managers and emergency response personnel to focus on the emergency at hand without being slowed down, trying to activate multiple systems.

Second, knowledge is critical in effectively responding to emergencies. The more knowledge one has about a situation, the better he or she can respond. In addition to integrating multiple communication systems, an interoperable emergency notification system can provide a secure real-time information sharing framework, allowing facilities to communicate to other facilities and campuses as well as to local fire, police and health departments and surrounding organizations for improved situational awareness, enabling facility managers to make more informed decisions when time is of the essence.

Third, one of the growing areas in emergency communications is improving situational awareness and system management by integrating MNS with external data sources and other life safety and security systems such as fire alarm, access control and sensor detection.

By integrating these systems, alerts can be automatically sent when a threat is detected. In an emergency, manual activation can create delayed activation of the system, errors in following procedures, and in general chaotic over-reaction. Cooper Notification’s Roam Secure Information eXchange (RSIX) has the sophisticated technology to collect information from outside sources and automate a variety of alerts such as severe weather, traffic updates, crime information, public health and national notifications, including the Center for Disease Control, Federal Drug Administration and Consumer Products Safety Commission.

Communication is critical during an emergency, and an integrated mass notification system is essential to your facilities’ emergency response plans. Delivering the right message to the right people at the right time is paramount for saving lives and reducing chaos in today’s complex threats. FSM