At some point in your career, you’ve likely heard a manager reel off the old adage, “failing to plan is planning to fail.” While it may sound trite, when considered in the context of public safety, that expression takes on a whole new meaning and sense of urgency. If it’s your job to protect people, whether they’re employees or the general public, you know that without a plan you’re not just going to fail – you’re going to put human lives in danger.
Having a strategy for keeping people safe and operations running is key, and increasingly, technology plays an integral role. BlackBerry® AtHoc® is a critical event management platform for providing organizations with awareness, critical information and secure collaboration before, during and after any incident. Through BlackBerry’s partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), BlackBerry AtHoc is available in the cloud, providing increased scalability and maximum reliability to our customers.
Let’s take a closer look at how BlackBerry AtHoc, powered by AWS, keeps your crisis communications highly secure, resilient and successful.
Coordinated Communications During Times of Crisis
For the public officials in Contra Costa County, California, the importance of preparing for the worst became all too real when, in 2019, an explosion ripped through two fuel storage tanks in the area, creating dangerous air quality and shutting down a major freeway. With over one million residents, 16 cities and the highest concentration of industrial and chemical facilities in the U.S., the County fortunately already had its crisis response strategy in place.
Using BlackBerry AtHoc alerting, the County issued a shelter-in-place alert to the approximately 12,000 people in the target area. Through BlackBerry AtHoc, they had a fast, easy, and unified way to manage personnel safety, send emergency notifications, facilitate effective cooperation with other agencies and gain situational awareness of the crisis as it was unfolding.
When the shelter-in-place order was lifted hours later, there were no injuries reported and the situation was under control. What could have been a dangerous health crisis was managed effectively and efficiently through consistent, secure, and reliable emergency communications. A coordinated crisis response, powered by BlackBerry AtHoc, kept everyone in the community informed and out of harm’s way.
Ultimate Reliability in the Cloud
Fortunately, the crisis in Contra Costa County was effectively contained. But what if the explosion had caused fires to spread throughout the area? What if the County’s infrastructure was damaged in a way that made officials unable to communicate with people and agencies in the vicinity?
With a cloud-based solution, threats to crisis communications infrastructure are virtually eliminated. Through BlackBerry AtHoc powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS), customers can respond to and resolve emergencies confidently, knowing they have a reliable, resilient and scalable solution:
- Reliable: As a leading provider of cloud services, AWS delivers cloud infrastructure with regional data centers all around the world, enabling organizations to leverage web services, including BlackBerry AtHoc, on demand.
- Resilient: Data centers are located in close geographic proximity while also being highly dependable on their own. Even in the event of a power outage, flood or other disaster, customers can continue to rely on BlackBerry AtHoc powered by AWS for secure, accurate, real-time information when it’s needed.
- Scalable: Through AWS, organizations have the opportunity to maximize the ROI of their cloud investments and easily scale their solution to adapt to changing needs without the headache of running and maintaining their own data centers.
Are You Ready for Whatever Comes Next?
BlackBerry AtHoc powered by AWS is helping public and private sector organizations worldwide communicate during important events, from day-to-day challenges to full-blown emergencies.
Learn more about how you can continue to evolve and expand your approach to safety and security. For more information, visit BlackBerry.com/AtHoc and follow @AtHoc on Twitter.