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Birmingham Disaster/Alert Systems
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July 13th, 2010BirminghamI received a rather strange phonecall this lunchtime, it was warning me of an incident in Birmingham City Centre, and to avoid certain areas and roads.
It took me a second to realise that I had signed up to the Birmingham Community Alert, I gave them my postcode and mobile number (through a Text), and thought nothing of it.
Thankfully, the incident was a hoax, and all is well. The service then followed up with a Text, as seen to the left, to alert me that all was fine.Overall I’m really impressed by the service (which is opt-in), and feel comforted by the fact that in the case of disaster/alerts I can be sent information.
The points I’d think might need work thought are:
- Use a recorded ‘real voice’ instead of a ‘text to voice’ system
- Allow the person to replay the message (i.e hit # to listen again)
- What happens when the phone networks jam? (An email would be nice as well)
So overall, job well done to Birmingham Resilience, Birmingham City Council, NHS, Police and Fire services.
Tags: birmingham council, city information, disaster alerts, disaster planning, information release
2 Responses to “Birmingham Disaster/Alert Systems”
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Neil, thank you very much for your blog about our service, and I’m glad you found it useful today.
We can certainly work on your points for improvement, and I’ll pick these up for you. Some are in progress already, but you can already sign up for e-mails (log onto our website and you can amend your details to also include e-mails).
Once again, thank you, it’s great to receive feedback like yours and hopefully this will act as encouragement for other people to register (for free!).
Cheers, Glen Curry, Birmingham Resilience Team – Emergency Planning Officer.
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Neil H
Glen,
I’ll certainly add my email into the system, the more ways to get hold of people in situations like this then the better.
I’m sure more people will use the service, it takes seconds to register!
