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Almost a year-and-a-half-long pilot program in four neighborhoods in Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens and Staten island, the city has announced that its message alert system, NotifyNYC, will now be rolled out citywide. Notify NYC services are available by email, text message and voice message to home, office and cellular telephones. According to the press release, starting on May 28, "Residents in all five boroughs will now be able to register multiple email addresses, text message accounts and phone numbers to receive Notify NYC advisories about events in up to five zip codes." Subscribers will get emergency alerts (hello, military plane that was supposed to fly over the Hudson), like AMBER Alerts and ones about natural disaster. Plus, you can sign up for Significant Event Notifications for less-severe situations (like brush fires, extended disruptions of mass transit services and major utility outages), Public Health Notifications and "non-emergency advisories about unscheduled suspensions of alternate side parking rules and public school closures and delays.
NotifyNYC Messaging Service Now Available Citywide
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And why isn't the City using TWITTER for this yet?????
Apparently http://www.twitter.com/notifynyc has indeed been registered by the City, so why aren't they using it yet???
Twitter is seemingly easy to hack, as has been demonstrated a few times already. I'd prefer a more secure system that won't allow random 4chan kids in their basements to throw the city into a panic.
Well, here's the response that I got from NotifyNYC:
We are currently testing linking Notify NYC with Twitter. The service
should be available in the very near future. Please be patient and
continue to check the Notify NYC website for more information.
Regarding 4chan kids: They should be rounded up and executed. All of them.
Remember the Emergency Warning System that would (and maybe still does) pop up on the TV or radio periodically. We were told, for years, that in the event of an "actual emergency", we would receive instructions and information.
Remember 9/11? The Emergency Warning System was nowhere to be found.
Your complaint has no merit: It wasn't necessary - the Emergency was being broadcast live on TV as it happened. In addition, the EBS is for emergencies where there is advance warning: An approaching hurricane, tornado's, nuclear warheads heading inbound (remember the Cold War???). There was no warning or advance notice of the events of September 11th.
I think the chaos and hysteria of 9/11 justified using the EBS -- which, to the best of my knowledge, has never been used in this area.
But the government continues to dump $ into the program. In the event of another real emergency here, don't actually expect the city to deliver on their instant notification promise.
And what was EBS supposed to say about 9/11??? As I said, EBS was meant for emergencies where there is advance notice, as the examples I listed above.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System#Incidents
"On September 11, 2001, "...the EAS was not activated nationally or regionally in New York or Washington during the terrorist attacks on the nation." Richard Rudman, then chairman of the EAS National Advisory Committee explained that near immediate coverage in the national media meant that the media itself provided the warning or alert of what had happened and what might happen as quickly as the information could be distributed. "Some events really do serve as their own alerts and warnings. With the immediate live media coverage, the need for an EAS warning was lessened." 34 PEP stations were kept on high alert for use if the President had decided to order an Emergency Action Notification. "PEP is really a last-ditch effort to get a message out if the president cannot get to the media." [11]"
reads like a cop-out because systems people were not on the ball.
I seem to recall the President being in classroom in Florida, then sort of nowhere to be found. In NYC, Guiliani reared his head occassionally to tell everyone to chill-out, then he disappeared into his bunker (which eventually burnt down). The talking heads on TV were speculating wildly just like everyone else: are there more jets heading to the city? Is there a threat on the GW Bridge?
There was no air of authority that day for many hours. The EAS would have come in handy then, on the day of the most spectacular terrorist attack ever on US soil.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_Alert_System#What_the_National_Level_EAS_Would_Not_Do
"What the National Level EAS Would Not Do
In a New York Times article (correction printed January 3, 2002)[needs citation] the lack of news coverage by station WNYC FM, New York, was explained by the destruction of its broadcast transmitters with the collapse of the World Trade Center north tower on 9/11. "No president has ever used the current [EAS] system or its technical predecessors in the last 50 years, despite the Soviet missile crisis, a presidential assassination, the Oklahoma City bombing, major earthquakes and three recent high-alert terrorist warnings. . . . Michael K. Powell, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, which oversees the Emergency Alert System, pointed to 'the ubiquitous media environment,' arguing that the system was, in effect, scooped by CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and other channels. . . . [FEMA] activates the alert system nationally at the behest of the White House on 34 50,000-watt stations that reach 98 percent of Americans. . . . Beyond that, the current Emergency Alert System signal is an audio message only -- which pre-empts all programming -- so that viewers who were watching color images of the trade center on Sept. 11 would have been able to see only a blank screen along with a presidential voice-over, if an emergency message had been activated."[5]
Other than the on-screen scrolling message accompanying the initial activation, the Federal Communications System EAS TV Handbook - 2007 does not include any sort of visual element. Under the SAME protocol, precise emergency information would be delivered aurally."
A government initiative that is useless. What a surprise.
You're just pathetic and bitter, that's all. Get over it.
Oh GoToHell!
So what is the point of even having the EAS, if everyone seems to admit it's never been used and there's no need for it?