Victorian police, ambulance embrace Twitter
While politicians quibble about the cost of an emergency messaging system, emergency services including police, fire services (in NSW), and ambulance have been embracing Twitter and SMS
Victoria Police's decision to SMS every phone in the state with a bushfire warning has reignited the debate over an emergency messaging system.
The mobile phone is ubiquitous in this wide brown land. There are now more active mobile phone accounts in Australia than there are Australians. If you need to reach someone in an emergency, mobile is the way to go.
I'd say even those people who survived the Black Saturday fires with nothing but the proverbial shirt on their back probably still had their phone in their pocket - a theory supported by the fact there was a plea for people to donate old mobile phone chargers in the days after the fires.
It's since come to light that Australia's federal and state governments recently balked at the $20 million cost of a telephone based alert system - designed to bombard mobile and fixed phones, within a given area, with warning messages in the event of fire or flooding. When you consider the economic impact of the bushfires and floods of late, not to mention the emotional toll, $20 million seems like a small price to pay.
Victoria Police took matters into their own hands on Monday, sending the following SMS to every mobile phone in the state;
"Msg from Vic Police: Extreme weather in Vic expected Mon night & Tues. High wind & fire risk. Listen to local ABC Radio for emergency updates. Do not reply to this."
Who's on Twitter?
What's just as interesting is that the Victoria Police have been Twittering since December. While politicians quibble about the cost of an emergency messaging system, the emergency services have been embracing Twitter as a means of quickly disseminating information. A quick rundown of services on Twitter includes;
Victoria Police
New South Wales Rural Fire Service
Ambulance Victoria
Other people have taken it upon themselves to create unofficial Twitter feeds scraping content from emergency services sites, such as;
Victorian Country Fire Authority updates
Victorian Country Fire Authority news
NSW Rural Fire Service updates
You can also follow updates from ABC radio's Twitter feeds and get weather updates from The Weather Channel. Strangely the Bureau of Meteorology has been slow to embrace RSS and Twitter.
The usefulness of such Twitter feeds will be significantly enhanced when Twitter comes good on its promise to re-enable SMS updates for Australian users.
Considering the low bandwidth requirements of SMS and Twitter, it makes sense to use them during times of emergency when networks are likely to be congested.
I'm not saying that SMS and Twitter are the solution to all of our problems, nor would I want to put my life solely in the hands of such "best effort" services.
Still, they make a great addition to traditional communication channels such as newspapers, television and radio. Twitter and SMS show the potential power of mobile messaging services, and it's time they were put to greater use by the powers that be.
UPDATE:
For overseas audiences, there are a variety of US Police Departments and related authorities to be found on Twitter:
FBI Press Office
Portsmouth Virginia Police Department
Franklin Police Department, Franklin, Massachusetts
Portland Police Bureau
LakelandPD
Other Blog Entries written by Adam Turner:
Thoughts on this article? Add a comment below.
Be the first to comment on this article.