Chambers County selects Spok's Critical Alerting Solutions for Emergency Communications

With the new alerting solution in place, county staff can now quickly and reliably reach emergency responders, firefighters, the sheriff’s office, and local hospitals and schools with important alerts that deal with everything from fires to severe weather events.

“We wanted a new solution we could control and manage in-house,” said Ryan Holzaepfel, emergency management coordinator for Chambers County Emergency Services. Along with the need for more reliable coverage was increasing demand for a system that would work with cell phones, allowing staff to communicate via text messaging and email if needed. They also wanted more reliability and flexibility in how they handled communications. After doing research, Holzaepfel selected Spok’s critical alerting solution due to its robust, flexible design, audit trail, and ease of use with a variety of communication devices.

Efficiency was also a consideration. “If you have a large fire and it will take several departments to manage it, the dispatcher can just contact a large group of people all at once. With the old system, you had to contact each person individually, which could delay response,” said Holzaepfel.

Messages are sent via the solution’s web interface to immediately notify the appropriate people about anything from critical events to regular county business. “The sheriff’s office uses it for different groups, such as animal control, justices of the peace, the arson team, and some of the judges,” said Holzaepfel. “If there is a weather event, the operations directors at local hospitals and schools can also be notified.”