Preparing for Emergency Communications
description
Transcript of Preparing for Emergency Communications
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Preparing for Emergency Communications
Technical tools to facilitate communication during a crisis
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Today’s Presentation
• About UVic• Communication principles• Technology principles
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Today’s Presentation
• Implementations• ‘Global menu’• ‘Lite’ emergency page• Emergency Notification System• Website publishing resiliency
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Today’s Presentation
• Acknowledgements:
• Larry HinklerAVP University Relations, Virginia Tech
• Chris HawkerDirector, Centre for Risk, Resilience & Renewal, University of Canterbury (NZ)
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About University of Victoria
• It’s lotus land
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About University of Victoria
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About University of Victoria
• Hazards everywhere!
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About University of Victoria
• Hazards everywhere!
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About University of Victoria
• Hazards everywhere!
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About University of Victoria
• Hazards everywhere!
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About University of Victoria
• Hazards everywhere!
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Common hazards
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Common hazards
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Common hazards
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Common hazards
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Common hazards
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UVic Emergency Planning Office
• Develop procedures & plans• Emergency binder with contacts, instructions
• Coordination of learning opportunities
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UVic Emergency Planning Office
• ‘Emergency Communications Committee’• Communications-specific discussion &
guidance• Participation in communications projects
(e.g., major website redesigns)
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Communication principles driving technical solutions
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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
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Technology principles driving implementation details
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Technology principles driving implementation details
• Simplicity
• Resiliency
• Redundancy
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Emergency Communications at UVic
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Emergency Communications at UVic
• Website ‘Global menu’• ‘Lite’ emergency homepage• Emergency Notification System• Web publishing redundancy
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)
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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”
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)
• Global “mega menu”
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UVic.ca global menu
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)
• Global “mega menu”• Universal menu with deep links• Top of the page• Rolled up by default
• Space for notifications
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)
• Global “mega menu”• PHP include in template
• Weather• Snow in #YYJ
• Advisory• Transit strike, paving
• Emergency• Popped open displaying full message
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UVic.ca global menu
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UVic.ca global menu
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UVic.ca global menu
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)
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UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)
• Communications objective:• Ensure that emergency messaging is highly
available on the homepage
• Technical solution:• Emergency, blog-style homepage
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UVic.ca emergency homepage
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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
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UVic.ca emergency homepage
• Replace ‘promo’ homepage
• Blog style – updated often
• Pre-populated in CMS with placeholder text
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UVic.ca emergency homepage
• Replace ‘promo’ homepage
• Little to no ‘processing’ (esp. back-end)
• Few/no images
• Lite JS library
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UVic.ca emergency homepage
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Emergency Notification System
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Emergency Notification System
• Communications objectives:• Alert campus community to hazardous
situation• Direct people how to act
• Technical solution:• Emergency Notification System (ENS)
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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
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ENS Messages
• ENS messages are slightly more informative than the red bells hanging on the wall
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ENS Messages
• Alert the campus
• “There is a person with a gun.”
• “There is a gas leak.”
• “The XYZ building is on fire.”
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ENS Messages
• Direct people how to stay safe
• “Leave campus.”
• “Barricade in place.”
• “Drop! Cover! Hold on!”
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ENS Messages
• Inform people where to get more info
• “See http://uvic.ca/emergency for more about...”
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ENS Messages
• Wrap it up.
• “It is safe to return.”
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ENS Technology
• Communication channels
• Bulk email to Exchange mailboxes
• Targeted email to ‘preferred’
• SMS message to ‘mobile’ phone
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ENS Technology
• Communication channels
• VOIP phone screen
• VOIP phone speaker broadcast
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ENS Technology
• Communication channels
• Twitter post
• Publish to web• Consumable XHTML chunk• Video display screens
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ENS Technology
• Resiliency• build & deploy as atomic web application• Groovy/grails (not APEX)• H2 database
• deploy to• redundant servers…• in redundant data centres
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ENS Technology
• Interface simplicity
• used under extreme stress
• concise wording
• clear, action-oriented buttons• “Send alerts now”
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ENS Technology
• Interface simplicity
• pre-populated with ‘template’ messages
• “training” vs. “emergency” modes
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ENS Technology
• Interface simplicity
• “Cherry blossom blizzard”
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ENS Technology
• It is not…
• a bulk emailer
• a way to manage contacts
• an alternative to the telephone
• for news
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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.”
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ENS Technology
• It is…
• slightly more informative than the red bell on the wall
• [ difficult to test without actually ringing the bell ]
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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
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A view into emergency communications planning discussions
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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.”
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A view into emergency communications planning discussions
• “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…
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A view into emergency communications planning discussions
• “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
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Off-site CMS hosting
• Both UVic and Western use Cascade CMS• Web-based interface• “Push” CMS • publishes via SFTP to web servers
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Off-site CMS hosting
• Reciprocal emergency site CMS hosting• Delegate admin & config• Common end-user interface & workflow• In-application authentication
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A view into emergency communications planning discussions
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A view into emergency communications planning discussions
• “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
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Off-site CMS hosting
• 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
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Start planning today
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Start planning today
• All I really need to know, I learned…
… working at the help desk
• Logistics trump technology
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Start planning today
• 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?
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Start planning today
• What phone number should media/parents/first responders call?
• What phone number in on your homepage?• Who answers that number?
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Start planning today
• 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?
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Start planning today
• 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?
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Start planning today
• 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
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Start planning today
• 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?]
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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
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Conclusions
• To prepare to communicate in a crisis, build…
• simple interfaces to
• resilient systems that are deployed to
• redundant locations