Developing An Operating Procedure for Your Notification System

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Just as an informed community is an important piece of the puzzle, an informed organization is also critical. It is sometimes an overlooked and underestimated part of the emergency notification project.

During system implementation and prior to going live, execute an internal awareness campaign. This will bring associates across your agency up to speed on the emergency notification system by the time the public announcement is made.

Once the decision is made to purchase a system, the focus turns to issues of project planning, implementation and training. As that is underway, assign an individual to develop a standard operating procedure for the system. Establish a protocol for the system's use to provide a comfort level among personnel. Doing so will provide guidelines on system use and administration and offer an overview of policies and agency roles and responsibilities.

The document should define the authority and responsibility for system administration, control, access and use. Who is authorized to active your system? This should be in a written, quick-to-read list that is kept right next to the activation station(s). Which department will oversee (administer) the system? There should be a chain of command as to who has the authority in your organization to activate notification campaigns. Clarity will prevent overuse of the system-"the boy who cried wolf"-and desensitize citizens to it.

The guidelines should identify which types of situations will warrant system activation. While it is not practical to define all cases in which the system should be used, you can set criteria to use as a general guideline for determining the need to issue an alert. Conditions under which the system should be deployed are:

• Evacuation
• Train wreck, with chemical spill or escaping gases
• Severe weather or other disaster
• Nuclear plant incident
• Terrorist threat
• Active shooter

Clarity here will prevent personnel from being afraid to activate the system. It is also useful to define conditions which are not appropriate for activation, such as commercial, political or non-official business.

Once the Operating Procedure has been developed be sure to share it will all appropriate persons and make it available for reference at a later date.