We need your help convincing the federal government to build a low cost computerized national emergency telephone alert system which local police and fire departments can use to broadcast up to one hundred thousand voice messages per minute to neighborhoods experiencing an emergency.

What if we could have sent them a message on how to evacuate?

What if we could have sent a message to everyone in the area?

What if we could have woke them up?

As the pictures above demonstrate there are hundreds of emergencies each year where police officers, firemen and emergency management workers find themselves wishing they had some way to notify people in certain areas of an emergency situation and what the best course of action is.

Unfortunately the existing systems for notifying the public, while helpful, are not always effective. Television and radio are not effective during the middle of the night because most people are sleeping. Loud sirens get peoples attention but don't tell them the nature of the emergency or what to do. Calling people one at a time on the phone can take a long time. Knocking on doors can take hours. In many instances these systems help. Unfortunately in others people die because there was no way to notify those in harms way.

The national system would work exactly like the smaller local systems currently in use. An emergency occurs and someone calls 911 to report it. Firemen and police officers respond. If they feel there is a need to notify people in the surrounding areas (fire, tornado, missing child, terrorist threat) they call the dispatcher and request an emergency message be broadcasted by phone. The 911 operator then records a voice message with details about the emergency and what people should do. The 911 operator circles an area (street, block, building or neighborhood) on a computerized map and hits SEND. The message is relayed to the computers that route the calls (via the Internet) and those computers in turn use the Internet to make phone calls. Phones begin to ring in the target area. Those who answer them are informed of the emergency and what they should do.

Imagine what would have happened in the situations depicted in the pictures above if fire, police and emergency management workers had been able to record and broadcast a message by telephone instantly to those in harms way.

What if the fire department had been able to record and broadcast a message when the fire suddenly changed directions in the middle of the night while people were sleeping. How many of them could have been saved if the phone had rung and said, "This is the fire department, the fire has changed directions and is moving toward you, the safest evacuation route is..."

We were all saddened when we heard that the young girl who had been kidnapped from a car wash had been found within a mile of the car wash, dead. Is it possible that she might have been found in time if the police had been able to broadcast a message by telephone to the area around where she had been abducted telling people what had happened and asking people to watch for her?

The world trade center attack was a horrific event and every emergency worker did their very best. Many gave their lives. They were heroes. Unfortunately, some of the victims who died within the twin towers of the world trade center had been given incorrect information on whether to stay or go. What if the chief of the fire department had been able to record two messages. One for people in the north tower and a second for those in the south tower on which he could have explained that planes had struck the buildings, what floors and on which side they had struck the buildings on, and the safest way for those still in the building to evacuate. Now imagine every phone in those buildings ringing at the same time and giving that message. How many lives could have been saved?

What's next? A fire, tornado, hurricane, chemical explosion, another missing child or terrorists flying crop dusters in the middle of the night? No matter what the emergency, wouldn't it be better to prepare now?

911 Safety Net is designed to use existing technologies to allow police, firemen and emergency managements workers to record and broadcast emergency messages by phone.

Reverse 911, Emergency Preparedness Network and have already saved hundreds of lives by allowing police, firemen and emergency management workers in approximately one hundred cities to instantly send recorded messages (anywhere from 10 to 20,000 per minute) by telephone to people during local emergencies.

We are asking the federal government to create one large national system that could handle up to one hundred thousand calls a minute and have it financed by the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. We are also asking that this system be made available for little or no cost to cities and states.

Please ask your senators to support 911 Safety Net

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