preparing for emergency communications

Preparing for Emergency Communications

Technical tools to facilitate communication during a crisis

Today’s Presentation

• About UVic• Communication principles• Technology principles


• Implementations• ‘Global menu’• ‘Lite’ emergency page• Emergency Notification System• Website publishing resiliency


• Acknowledgements:

• Larry HinklerAVP University Relations, Virginia Tech

• Chris HawkerDirector, Centre for Risk, Resilience & Renewal, University of Canterbury (NZ)

About University of Victoria

• It’s lotus land


• Hazards everywhere!

Common hazards

UVic Emergency Planning Office

• Develop procedures & plans• Emergency binder with contacts, instructions

• Coordination of learning opportunities

UVic Emergency Planning Office

• ‘Emergency Communications Committee’• Communications-specific discussion &

guidance• Participation in communications projects

(e.g., major website redesigns)

Communication principles driving technical solutions

Communication principles driving technical solutions

• Openness, transparency

• In a crisis, communicate… • as much as possible• as quickly as possible• what people should do to stay safe• to inform audiences who really care

Technology principles driving implementation details

Technology principles driving implementation details

• Simplicity

• Resiliency

• Redundancy

Emergency Communications at UVic

Emergency Communications at UVic

• Website ‘Global menu’• ‘Lite’ emergency homepage• Emergency Notification System• Web publishing redundancy

UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)


• Communications objective:• Provide consistent, deep links throughout

UVic web space• Alert audience to situations on campus (on

all pages)

• Technical solution:• Global “mega menu”


• Global “mega menu”

UVic.ca global menu


• Global “mega menu”• Universal menu with deep links• Top of the page• Rolled up by default

• Space for notifications


• Global “mega menu”• PHP include in template

• Weather• Snow in #YYJ

• Advisory• Transit strike, paving

• Emergency• Popped open displaying full message

UVic.ca global menu


• Communications objective:• Ensure that emergency messaging is highly

available on the homepage

• Technical solution:• Emergency, blog-style homepage

UVic.ca emergency homepage


• Your emergency will go viral.• Expect a month’s worth of traffic in a day

• Social Media – aka, rubber necking goes global…

• … while the people who really care can’t connect


• Replace ‘promo’ homepage

• Blog style – updated often

• Pre-populated in CMS with placeholder text


• Replace ‘promo’ homepage

• Little to no ‘processing’ (esp. back-end)

• Few/no images

• Lite JS library

Emergency Notification System

Emergency Notification System

• Communications objectives:• Alert campus community to hazardous

situation• Direct people how to act

• Technical solution:• Emergency Notification System (ENS)

ENS Messages

• What is an extraordinarily simple communication medium that conveys information very clearly, concisely and completely?

• All at once it says…• there is a fire• drop what you’re doing• get out of the building

ENS Messages

• ENS messages are slightly more informative than the red bells hanging on the wall

ENS Messages

• Alert the campus

• “There is a person with a gun.”

• “There is a gas leak.”

• “The XYZ building is on fire.”

ENS Messages

• Direct people how to stay safe

• “Leave campus.”

• “Barricade in place.”

• “Drop! Cover! Hold on!”

ENS Messages

• Inform people where to get more info

• “See http://uvic.ca/emergency for more about...”

http://uvic.ca/emergency

ENS Messages

• Wrap it up.

• “It is safe to return.”

ENS Technology

• Communication channels

• Bulk email to Exchange mailboxes

• Targeted email to ‘preferred’

• SMS message to ‘mobile’ phone

ENS Technology


• VOIP phone screen

• VOIP phone speaker broadcast

ENS Technology


• Twitter post

• Publish to web• Consumable XHTML chunk• Video display screens

ENS Technology

• Resiliency• build & deploy as atomic web application• Groovy/grails (not APEX)• H2 database

• deploy to• redundant servers…• in redundant data centres

ENS Technology

• Interface simplicity

• used under extreme stress

• concise wording

• clear, action-oriented buttons• “Send alerts now”

ENS Technology


• pre-populated with ‘template’ messages

• “training” vs. “emergency” modes

ENS Technology


• “Cherry blossom blizzard”

ENS Technology

• It is not…

• a bulk emailer

• a way to manage contacts

• an alternative to the telephone

• for news

ENS Technology

• It is…• to help people stay safe• “There is a gas leak. Evacuate and stay

away from XYZ building.”• “There was a gas leak.” (news)• “There was a gas leak. You may still be

able to smell gas, but the problem has been solved and it is safe. You can return to the XYZ building.”

ENS Technology

• It is…

• slightly more informative than the red bell on the wall

• [ difficult to test without actually ringing the bell ]

BCP for Communications

• Communications objective:• In a crisis when our infrastructure is

compromised, we must be able to continue to update the web.

• Technical solution:• Off-site web hosting

A view into emergency communications planning discussions


• “What if the web server dies?”• “No problem, we have four of them.”

• “What if the data centre dies?”• “No problem, we have two of them.”


• “What if both data centres die?” • “We have a BCP Server at TRU (Kamloops).”

• Single VM for www at TRU• Re-point DNS (scripted)• index.php is ‘emergency’ blog style• 404 page is index.php• However…


• “If our data centres are down, so is our WCMS. How do we update the content to TRU?”

• “Hmm.”• “Does the Director of Communications know

how to code HTML and command-line sftp?”

• Enter Judy Steward from Western

Off-site CMS hosting

• Both UVic and Western use Cascade CMS• Web-based interface• “Push” CMS • publishes via SFTP to web servers


• Reciprocal emergency site CMS hosting• Delegate admin & config• Common end-user interface & workflow• In-application authentication


• “If our data centres are down, our internet connection probably is too. How will we connect to Western’s Cascade to update content?”

• “Hmm.”• “We could ask Western to update the site for us.”

• Enter Judy Steward from Western


• Phone call (land line, cell, satellite?) with request to update content

• Judy can login to Western’s CMS and publish to UVic’s emerg site at TRU

Start planning today


• All I really need to know, I learned…

… working at the help desk

• Logistics trump technology


• What room will be you Emergency Command Centre?

• Are its phone/network ports active now?

• Who has keys?

• Is it on the top floor? basement?


• What phone number should media/parents/first responders call?

• What phone number in on your homepage?• Who answers that number?


• Practical logistical considerations for technology

• Who has access rights to emerg systems?

• Have they been trained?

• When was the last time they exercised?

• Where’s the how-to manual?


• Have difficult questions today – not during the event.

• What are the plausible hazards?

• What message and tone do we want to use to respond to them?

• What’s our template message for each hazard?


• Have difficult questions today – not during the event.

• Under which scenarios ‘Do we?’ or ‘Don’t we?’ declare an ‘emergency’?

• When does a general ‘advisory’ become an ‘emergency’?

• Threat to life & limb


• Ring the bells occasionally (but not too often)• Emergency Preparedness Week (May 4 to 10,

2014)• BC Shakeout

• [How do you get your students to pay attention?]

Conclusions

• In a crisis, communicate…

• as much as possible

• as quickly as possible

• what people should do to stay safe

• to inform audiences who really care

Conclusions

• To prepare to communicate in a crisis, build…

• simple interfaces to

• resilient systems that are deployed to

• redundant locations

Questions?

• David Shaykewich, UVic• [email protected]

• Judy Steward, Western• [email protected]

preparing for emergency communications

Documents

emergency messaging

university of victoriahazards

global mega menuuniversal

global mega menuphp

uvicemergency communications

communications projects

homepage technical solution

university of canterbury