​An effective communication plan is the most overlooked part of an emergency plan. The best communications plan is layered with redundancy. Each individual needs the ability to communicate to the outside and also have the ability to receive communications from the outside. In the military they use what is called a P.A.C.E. plan (Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency). The principle is to have multiple methods to communicate in case one method is not available or fails. Additionally, communication needs to touch those that can listen and make a difference with the information they receive and respond effectively.

​In the majority of situations there is no thought put into a communications plan. In every situation, every incident and emergency, having effective communications makes all the difference. Too much time, money and energy is wasted on things that have limited impact on emergencies, or impact very specific situations. Creating a communications plan will empower each individual in any given situation and ultimately have the greatest impact on saving lives.

​In an organization you have an employee, other employees, administration, and first responders that need to be tied into the communications plan. Most important is assessing how each individual can get a message out regardless of where they are located in the facility. Secondly, how a message can be sent to each individual from a central location regardless of their location. Next, how does the message reach first responders in real time. Lastly, how to maintain ongoing communications throughout the incident until the situation is resolved. In some cases multiples means of communications are used to address each of these. There are some technologies that exist, which provide ability to do all the above, but be cautious to not create a single point of failure. A school recently spent a lot of money on a communication system that provided the means to communicate with all their people in a variety of ways. The system was great, however only a single person in a single location could send a message. This creates a single point of failure and creates a critical situation when that person does not have all the right information. This is similar to systems in hospitals across the nation. They are dependent on one person to share the right information at the right time, to everyone.

While conducting training at a local school, the question was asked, “if there is an active threat how should I alert the school?” The response, “every possible means.” However if there was an isolated medical incident, a call to 911 may be sufficient. Many organizations conduct drills on a regular basis, but do not practice communicating during those drills. Employees follow pre-determined plans, which does not truly train and enhance preparedness. It would be more effective to setup scenarios where different methods of communications were required to be used to navigate through a specific emergency.
Bottom line. A redundant plan that connects all the right people initially, during and after an incident happens.

​Bottom line. A redundant plan that connects all the right people initially, during and after an incident happens.

In this tutorial video, we run you through how to update your location in an emergency using DIR-S and why this is important. Enjoy!

​What do you do when faced with an emergency situation to spread the word immediately without causing a panic? DIR-S is used almost every day in different situations our clients find themselves in.
 
When schools and organizations using DIR-S are all familiar with the application and have taken the time to become proficient with it, reaction times are cut down to mere minutes. As can be seen in the case study below, this school was able to react to the threat posed to them in a matter of minutes, when managing this same type of situation might have taken well over an hour to manage.
 
(Names and Locations Changed for Privacy)
LOCKOUT alert initiated at 8:32 a.m. by Responder Chris Trager.
8:33 a.m. (District Administrator): This is not a drill; I will keep you all informed here on DIR-S as I can.
8:35 a.m. (Responder): Report of person in the student parking lot waving a weapon out the window. Vehicle located unoccupied in the North student parking lot with an air soft gun inside. School remain in lockout while we investigate.
8:45 a.m. Alert ESCALATED to LOCKDOWN by Responder Chris Trager.
8:46 a.m. (Responder) For safety reasons we escalated to a lockdown. There were five students potentially involved. Working on getting them all contained.
8:54 a.m. (Responder): Lifting the LOCKDOWN. All students have been identified and contained. No weapons outstanding.
 
Because of DIR-S, this situation which could have caused a panic and taken hours to handle was completely taken care of in a matter of roughly 30 minutes. No one was harmed, and everyone involved in the situation was able to stay informed as to the information pertinent to them.

In this video, we run through the steps a teacher, or "base user," should take when they receive a "Lockdown" alert on DIR-S (duress). 
Since DIR-S is used often in high stress situations, we have gone to great lengths to make it as user friendly and simple of a process as possible. To aid in this, we provide in this video a step-by-step rundown of what to do. 

In this video, we run through an example of how to conduct an Evacuation procedure from a smartphone using DIR-S (duress). Similar procedures are used when sending out other alert types from smartphones; this particular video is taken in the context of an evacuation. 

​In the video above, we show how to run an Evacuation drill from your desktop app. We run through the drill from the perspective of a school administrator. 
Make sure and view our blog regularly to see more DIR-S tutorial videos as they are made. They will be covering a wide variety or situations and scenarios where DIR-S can be used to handle the situation in the most effective way possible. 

We recently had the opportunity to meet with Thane Hutchinson, the Principal of Mount Logan Middle School. He has been using DIR-S for the past few years and had some wonderful things to say about DIR-S, and how it has helped his school 

3:08 p.m. LOCKDOWN alert initiated by (Teacher 1)
3:09 p.m. (Principal): What’s the problem?
3:09 p.m. (Teacher 1): A student brought a gun.
3:11 p.m. (Principal): Police are notified and on the way. Does he still have it?
3:11 p.m. (Teacher 1): Yes. No shooting. He’s Really mad.
3:12 p.m. (Principal): Help is coming. Description of the student?
 
To protect the privacy of those involved, no more chat transcript will be provided.
 
Thankfully, police arrived on scene moments later and were able to get the situation under control without anyone being harmed. Thanks to DIR-S, the teacher was able to stay in discrete and active communication with the principal. All other teachers were able to stay up to date on the situation without any major disruptions to their classes, other than ensuring that their students stay in the room. Moreover, being able to remain in real-time communication with DIR-S helped reaction times remain at a minimum, and everyone in the school was kept safe.​