Sullys Skill plus SMS saves lives

The combination of human skill and mobile SMS technological advances in mobile communications made all the difference to the 150 passengers and five crew members on the US Airways plane that crash landed in the Hudson River on January 15 this year. All of them survived with no injuries with one exception of a passenger with two broken legs.

Praise must go to the daring pilot, Captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III, for calmly making a difficult decision as to where to put the plane down after birds had flown into the engine and for his skill in landing in the river so smoothly. Praise must also go the emergency services of New York State that responded very quickly to avert what could have been a terrible tragedy.

Part of the reason for the speedy response of the New York Police Department, Coast Guard and Fire Department was a predetermined mobile communications strategy. Although it is well known how passengers on the plane were able to communicate via SMS text messages with their loved ones, what is not generally known is that the emergency service response was partially coordinated by a bulk text messaging system. By using SMS messages to coordinate different sectors of the emergency response teams, there was sufficient and efficient deployment of resources to the scene.

“They plan for these kinds of emergencies, they train for these kinds of emergencies and you saw it in action,” New York City Mayor Bloomberg said. “Because of their fast brave work, we think that contributed to the fact that it looks like everybody is safe.”

Since the disaster in Mayanmar, China and the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, emergency notification systems have been overhauled. The most effective improvement has been the adoption of SMS bulk text messaging to quickly and cost-effectively disseminate urgent information. Because the nature of an emergency implies that people are mobile and not able to access traditional communication devices such as landline phones or even email systems, the mobile phone is the most obvious device to communicate through. And as text messages will be delivered even when voice calls have saturated cellular networks, they are the most logical form of messaging medium.

Working with a reliable bulk SMS provider, any organization can draw up a mobile emergency notification system. Ordinary citizens can opt-in to receive emergency text notifications and emergency services staff members can easily be communicated with in times of need. Using bulk SMS text messages as a primary channel for instant communication, government, state and local agencies can quickly coordinate incident and damage assessment reports, mobilization of rescue workers, transmission of emergency instructions and the managing of evacuations.

Organizations such as the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Centre and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s National Weather Service already have some success using SMS text messaging to warn staff members and the public of potentially dangerous weather phenomena.

Bulk text messaging has a huge appeal for governments looking for efficient emergency notification messaging solutions. The instantaneous delivery of text messages allows emergency services to respond faster. The cost-effective nature of SMS text messaging means that it is affordable to implement for government and local authorities. Bulk text messaging is efficient in that all sectors needing to respond to a particular emergency are getting the same information, from the same source, at the same time.