It’s not possible to predict natural disasters and other dangers your students might face while in school. Fortunately, you can have a warning system that you can use to send out critical alerts to groups of people on the campus. Today, public safety officials prefer Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs) or Emergency Communication to inform the general public about potential emergencies with ease.
For instance, the President of the United States can send out Amber Alerts to warn citizens about certain dangers to their lives. Although subscribers choose to block out such alerts, the FCC is adamant that wireless carriers have their subscribers know whether they offer WEA services.
Similarly, numerous schools have turned to emergency communication alerts to relay information and warnings to their staff and students. When these alerts are correctly handled, they can end up saving many lives in case of an imminent threat to life. Such emergency notification systems will also work for other institutions. These include nonprofits, hospitals, and other communication-based platform organizations.
Why Schools Need a Modern Emergency Notification System (ENS)
As mentioned earlier, an emergency notification system isn’t meant for just government-based mass notification systems. A reliable emergency alert system is crucial for all institutions, including schools. The aim is to ensure easier communication for critical event management. These emergency alert systems make it possible to communicate in real-time, with anyone, anywhere in the school. The alerts can be sent out via a student’s mobile device or smartphone. This is because most students communicate via SMS text or push notifications.
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Equally important during an unprecedented crisis is two-way communication. Here, the school administration and its first responders can depend on direct feedback from students on campus. Eventually, all this works to ensure that everyone stays safe, thanks to modern emergency communication notification systems. This means that these mass notification systems have to maintain a certain level of flexibility to yield the best results. And therefore, it’s essential first to consider what type of emergency notification is best for your school. Here are three crucial ENS technologies you can use.
1. Digital Signage
Digitalization has now become an industry-standard in today’s world, and not just for business operations. The human mind acknowledges graphics quicker than written text. And that’s what makes digital signage among the most helpful emergency notification systems for schools. Traditionally, digital signage was only limited to advertising and other general communication purposes. But now, it has become a powerful tool when it comes to emergency alerts. Through digital signage, you can relay vital life-saving information, especially in school emergencies.
Its ability to be highly visible and effective in communication makes it possible to send out emergency alerts to groups of people. This way, rescue efforts in the face of natural disasters and life-threatening hazards become much easier. All you have to do is have your digital sign in a strategic location. This way, most students and staff can easily see the emergency notification messages. After all, when everyone can understand the gravity of the message, it becomes much easier to get themselves to safety.
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They can be instrumental when warning of potential natural disasters such as a tsunami or likely storms. Additionally, digital signage could be an excellent emergency alert tool during riots, extreme traffic delays, and potential bomb threats. Since people’s brains process images faster than intercom announcements, digital signage can get to even more people in the school.
2. CAP Alert Technology
Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) alerts are equally helpful when sending out emergency notifications on the go. These alerts utilize a general format and are pretty simple to execute. They incorporate all types of hazards and send out warnings and emergency alerts over any network. Here, a warning notification can be sent out across several emergency notification system networks in the school at the same time.
Ultimately, the whole process is much easier, and the recipients receive the warning more effectively. It could involve any hostile situation or potential hazards that might place people’s lives at risk. CAP alerts use different templates to pass along warning messages. These templates directly reflect on real-life experiences and results from research findings.
Most schools find this quite useful as an emergency alert system. The reason is that they’re quicker in sending out emergency notifications. Moreover, they can relay the same messages on various digital signage platforms. Additionally, CAP messages are often passed through other external mass notification systems. Such systems might include text messaging and public address platforms. So that makes it a pretty flexible emergency notification system for your school.
3. Emergency Alerts Technology
There are specific emergencies that require swift critical alerts for the safety of your students, staff, and other employees as well. For instance, cases of fire, shootings, and gas leaks mean that you’ll need to use an active emergency alert system. Even if it means overriding existing content on your school’s digital signage. This way, you can inform everyone on the campus grounds about whatever is going on and guide them on how to stay safe and protected. The best way to do this is to give a detailed description of the warning situation. By doing so, everyone will understand the level of danger they could be in.
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Although this might be a one-way communication method, it will be extremely useful in such emergencies where there’s little time to act. Here, you can relay instructions to all the groups of people in the school. It could be guidelines on what routes to avoid and how best to protect themselves from any danger. Additionally, vital information such as hospital contacts and emergency response information could be useful things you may want on display. It also helps inform the students and staff about various emergency first aid techniques for the affected people.
Final Word
These emergency alert technologies could make all the difference in the safety of everyone in the school. You could use their various properties to your advantage, especially for critical event management tactics. This way, you can work closely with your first responders and mitigate the threat as quickly as possible for everyone’s peace of mind.
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