Public Alerting in the Halifax Regional Municipality

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Public Alerting in the Halifax Regional
Municipality
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The Halifax Regional Municipality(H.R.M.)

• Amalgamated on April 01, 1996
• Made up of four former municipalities
• 344,000 population
• 5,000 square kilometers
• One of the largest urban centers in Atlantic
  Canada
• Large rural areas

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Three main areas

• Alert notification City Watch
• Broadcast radio alerting 97.9 Community FM
• Amateur Radio Project Centwarn

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City Watch

• Commercial application
• Owned by the municipality
• Server based, with 72 outgoing telephone lines
• External or internal database capable
• 10,000 separate databases allowed
• Accessible for broadcast from any telephone
• Automated - one call in, many calls out

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City WatchFeatures

• Outgoing call up to three voice numbers per
  contact
• Pagers, Wireless PDAs, TTY, fax and E-mail
• Survey capable
• GIS enabled
• Allows for multiple users (multiple stakeholders)
• Report generation of results

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City WatchCurrent Uses

• Notify/activate volunteer agencies like Ground
  Search and Rescue, Amateur Radio, etc
• Activate the municipal emergency plan
• Notify special populations, IE nursing homes of
  an event
• Send Sit-reps to predetermined groups during an
  event
• Notifications for community meetings (practice)

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City WatchIssues

• New users are afraid of the system
• Lack of adequate software documentation
• Proprietary software requiring specialized
  knowledge to troubleshoot
• Multiple points of failure
• Lack of access to 911 databases negates most of
  the GIS features
• Access to dial-tone?

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97.9 Community Information Radio

• Privately owned low power radio system
• Community and tourism related information
• Regular audience in normal times
• High listening audience in times of emergency

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97.9 Community Information RadioFeatures

• Remote access available for system users
  (stakeholders)
• Internet based through .wav file
• Normally goes to message queue
• HRM EMO has availability to bypass queue and go
  direct-to-air

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97.9 Community Information RadioIssues

• Starting to show up in emergency plans (requires
  current, accurate updating)
• Requires Internet availability to send updates
• Radio coverage area is small
• Not a constant listening audience

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Project Centwarn

• Uses Amateur Radio personnel to connect to
  broadcast radio stations
• Eliminates loss of telephony issues in getting
  public alerting material to broadcast radio
  facilities
• Public information message relayed from municipal
  operations center to participating radio stations

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Project CentwarnFeatures

• Can work from remote and mobile sites
• Not dependant on telephone or existing municipal
  communications infrastructure
• Cost negligible
• Enhancements Some station owners have
  pre-equipped with a 2m (VHF) antenna and power
  supply

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Project CentwarnIssues

• Radio stations forget the concept
• Aging of our Amateur Radio resource (human)
• Lack of formalized training and exercising
  programs involving both groups
• Assumes broadcast radio has back-up power
  capabilities at the control room and transmission
  tower

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Summary

• Formation of a local Persons with Disabilities
  committee to discuss alerting and public
  information
• Public alerting procedures and responsibilities
  must show up in municipal evacuation and public
  information plans
• Multiple systems require multiple maintenance
  protocols