Preparing for
Emergency
Communications
Technical tools to facilitate
communication during a crisis
Today’s Presentation
• About UVic
• Communication principles
• Technology principles
Today’s Presentation
• Implementations
• ‘Global menu’
• ‘Lite’ emergency page
• Emergency Notification System
• Website publishing resiliency
Today’s Presentation
• Acknowledgements:
• Larry Hinkler
AVP University Relations, Virginia Tech
• Chris Hawker
Director, Centre for Risk, Resilience & Renewal,
University of Canterbury (NZ)
About University of Victoria
• It’s lotus land
About University of Victoria
About University of Victoria
• Hazards everywhere!
About University of Victoria
• Hazards everywhere!
About University of Victoria
• Hazards everywhere!
About University of Victoria
• Hazards everywhere!
About University of Victoria
• Hazards everywhere!
Common hazards
Common hazards
Common hazards
Common hazards
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)
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”
UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)
• Global “mega menu”
UVic.ca global menu
UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)
• Global “mega menu”
• Universal menu with deep links
• Top of the page
• Rolled up by default
• Space for notifications
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
UVic.ca global menu
UVic.ca global menu
UVic.ca global menu
UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)
UVic.ca Website Redesign (2012)
• Communications objective:
• Ensure that emergency messaging is highly
available on the homepage
• Technical solution:
• Emergency, blog-style homepage
UVic.ca emergency 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
UVic.ca emergency homepage
• Replace ‘promo’ homepage
• Blog style – updated often
• Pre-populated in CMS with placeholder text
UVic.ca emergency homepage
• Replace ‘promo’ homepage
• Little to no ‘processing’ (esp. back-end)
• Few/no images
• Lite JS library
UVic.ca emergency homepage
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...”
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
• Communication channels
• VOIP phone screen
• VOIP phone speaker broadcast
ENS Technology
• Communication channels
• 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
• Interface simplicity
• pre-populated with ‘template’ messages
• “training” vs. “emergency” modes
ENS Technology
• Interface simplicity
• “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
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.”
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…
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
Off-site CMS hosting
• Both UVic and Western use Cascade CMS
• Web-based interface
• “Push” CMS
• publishes via SFTP to web servers
Off-site CMS hosting
• Reciprocal emergency site CMS hosting
• Delegate admin & config
• Common end-user interface & workflow
• In-application authentication
A view into emergency communications
planning discussions
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
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
Start planning today
Start planning today
• All I really need to know, I learned…
… working at the help desk
• Logistics trump technology
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?
Start planning today
• What phone number should media/parents/first
responders call?
• What phone number in on your homepage?
• Who answers that number?
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?
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?
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
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?]
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
• dshaykew@uvic.ca
• Judy Steward, Western
• judy@uwo.ca