The record-breaking snow fall in the mid-Atlantic region over the past week caused an unprecedented numbers of road closures in Pennsylvania and forced the federal government in Washington D.C. to shut down for four days. As road crews worked around the clock and residents extracted themselves from the onslaught of February storms, Cooper Notification’s award- winning Roam Secure Alert Network (RSAN) systems sent more than 11 million messages throughout the mid-Atlantic to communicate critical information, including school and road closures, severe weather warnings, shelter-in-place, and opening of warming centers. Cooper Notification is a platform of Cooper Industries.

“The blizzard of 2010 was a major storm, shutting down interstates and causing disruptions throughout the Philadelphia region,” said MaryAnn Tierney, director of Emergency Management in Philadelphia. “We used our Cooper Notification RSAN system, known as ReadyNotifyPA, to share information between public safety officials and emergency responders, city departments, and private utility providers. ReadyNotifyPA was also essential in keeping the general public informed during these extreme weather conditions.”

Through RSAN, emergency management personnel at government buildings, college campuses and healthcare facilities were able to send geographically targeted alerts, even during power outages, to communities across the Mid-Atlantic from Richmond, Va. to Philadelphia.Alerts were sent simultaneously via E-mail, text and voice to cell phones, landlines, smart phones, pagers and other devices. Utilizing multiple delivery channels increases the likelihood each population will receive the message no matter where they are located or evacuated.

“We are pleased to help communities across the Mid-Atlantic communicate critical information to protect, alert and inform their citizens during these record-breaking winter storms,” said Scott Hearn, president, Cooper Notification. “Timely, reliable and effective communications is vital when it comes to public safety, and we’d like to thank our customers such as the National Capital Region, Virginia Community College System and the Philadelphia metropolitan area for an exceptional job in not only communicating to emergency management personnel but also providing direction to their communities in a timely manner.”

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Source: Cooper Notification Feb. 19 press release

Cooper Notification, the industry’s most comprehensive, multi-layered Mass Notification System (MNS) provider, provides critical, emergency communications for cities and counties across the U.S. With 500 MNS systems around the globe, other installations include U.S. military sites; university and college campuses; state and federal agencies; airports; and hospitals.  Integrated with one simple-to-use interface, Cooper Notifications reliable and effective MNS solutions allow emergency officials to send event-specific instructions to multiple communication channels, including voice-sirens, indoor and outdoor speakers, digital signage, text messaging/SMS alerting, automated dialing systems, desktop alerts, and email notifications. These systems play an important role in emergency alerting and information sharing among government leadership, first responders, critical infrastructure providers, businesses and citizens.

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