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Stetson University, and more—replicated the approach at FSU to pro- vide a detailed and comprehensive response to the regional threat.
“We’ve received a lot less phone calls because we took the top ten most-asked questions during hurricane season and posted them in the app,” FSU Emergency Management Coordinator Matt Lewis said. “A lot of those questions that parents ask are in the app—so we send them there.”
Though the FSU’s outreach strategy during Irma focused totally on whole campus readiness, the app was used well before September 2017. Students, faculty and staff already knew that SeminoleSAFE was a valu- able tool in a number of campus events and not just Hurricanes.
The Next Generation of Emergency Notifications via Mobile Apps
Push notifications also get the added advantage of being part of a quickly growing technology market of smartphone devices. As these devices and their operating systems get more powerful, so too do the push notifications and other app features.
One keen example of innovations that are difficult or impossible on other alerting mechanisms is Geo-Located push notifications. Simply put, this offers a way for your emergency management group to send push notifications to users that are inside a geo-fence at the time an alert is sent. While there is a similar ability for text messages, push notifications work globally whereas text messages can be restricted based on both the country’s telecommunication providers and the laws of that jurisdiction. There are other complications with SMS geo-location as well, such as the ever-changing rules of telecom- munication firms.
Aside from push notifications, indoor location tracking—even in multi-storey buildings—is becoming an increasingly popular capabil-
ity. For instance, the AppArmor Safety app platform can offer the institution the ability to identify a user’s building and floor location in the event a panic button is triggered via the app. There are numer- ous ways this is accomplished; whether by wireless access points or “beacons,” it is entirely possible to track a user in a building as they flee an emergency.
The Most Affordable and Effective
Way to Supplement your Alerts
Custom mobile safety apps offer an essential, lifesaving mechanism to alert students, faculty and staff in the event of an emergency. The combination of push notifications, real-time and accurate content, and an increasingly powerful platform make custom mobile safety apps a must-have at all university and college campuses.
David Sinkinson is the CEO and Co-Founder of AppArmor.
emergency communication