MEMORANDUM

TO: City Council

FROM: David J. Deutsch, City Manager

SUBJECT: ALERT BOWIE - Emergency Alert System

DATE: August 31, 2006

This month Bowie joins the ranks of Washington area jurisdictions that offer emergency alerting systems to their residents. Through a Homeland Security grant to the local governments of the National Capital Region, the city is able to provide this program at no cost to city government.

The tool, which we are calling “ALERT BOWIE” is provided by a company called Roam Secure. It gives staff the ability to send emergency and informational text messages to users who sign up for the free service.

How Roam Secure Functions

The Roam Secure System provides the ability to send messages to specified recipients. The message can be sent and received via a computer, a cellular phone, or other wireless device.

The system uses text-based alerting because it is less vulnerable to disruption than cellular calls. Text uses a part of the cellular phone network that is allocated to data, so it does not compete with voice calls to reach a recipient’s device. When network volume is too high, voice calls will be dropped. When text-based messages are sent, delivery is usually instantaneous. If the system is overloaded, text messages are placed in a queue and sent continuously to a device until successful, which prevents messages from being lost.

Benefits of System

• Roam Secure sends a single message to a large volume of recipients quickly.
• It takes the convenience of using email distribution lists a step further by providing the ability to send messages to cell phones and other wireless devices from any location.
• The sender does not need a computer to send a message. Messages can be sent from cell phones, blackberries, text pagers, computers and other personal devices.
• The devices that a person registers will determine where the message will be delivered. Different devices can be specified for different types of messages.
• The sender does not have to remember addresses, phone numbers or the preferred means of receiving messages for each individual.

Use of the System

While the service will be most useful in times of emergency, many local jurisdictions offer different types of non-emergency notifications to users. They’re doing this because this is an easy-to-use communication tool and because the more the service is used, the more comfortable individuals will be with it in times of emergency. At present, an individual must send the message, but planned enhancements to the product will include the ability to send automatic feeds (i.e. from news and weather services) to subscribers.

“ALERT BOWIE” is up and running. Earlier this month both local papers did stories on the service. To date, sixty-five individuals have signed up for alerts. Marketing plans include web and cable announcements, an article in the next Bowie Spotlight, message board announcements and incentive prize drawings for every 500 subscribers.