When Hurricanes Katrina and Rita slammed the Gulf Coast this season, coastal communities in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas were faced with the monumental task of conveying emergency warnings quickly and accurately to those at greatest risk. Television and radio broadcasts helped sound the alarm region-wide, but these media were unable to provide specific, localized warnings to residents in areas designated to be in acute danger of flooding and other damage. To help encourage these high-risk residents to evacuate, with specific information on where to seek safer ground, many communities activated FirstCall Network, a Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based emergency notification system which alerts residents of evacuation orders and hurricane advisories through telephones, pagers and wireless devices. Thanks to the system’s location-intelligent mapping technology provided by MapInfo, municipalities were able to give priority to those residents in areas of gravest danger, adding precious minutes of escape time.
 
FirstCall is an emergency telephone, pager and wireless device notification network for communities, businesses and industries, designed to protect lives and property in emergency situations, such as hurricanes, chemical spills, and power outages, as well as provide critical information instantaneously in situations such as child abductions.

In Louisiana, public safety managers in municipalities including West Baton Rouge, St. James Parish, St. Mary Parish, Iberia Parish, City of Slidell and others were able to notify citizens of Katrina’s projected path and order them to evacuate the area or locate an emergency shelter. Over the course of the storms, FirstCall delivered over 900,000 emergency notifications to citizens in areas affected by the hurricanes.
 
FirstCall utilizes MapInfo® Professional mapping technology to integrate designated residential and business telephone numbers and addresses with advanced location intelligence to provide a rapid, targeted and uninterrupted emergency telephone notification system. The powerful mapping capabilities of MapInfo Professional allow the system to dial by street, road, avenue, house, block or a section of the population, as well as by user-defined or custom areas or boundaries such as corridors around railways, highways, interstate systems and pipelines – a feature that is unique to FirstCall.
 
In Louisiana’s St. Tammany Parish, for example, emergency officials used the system to activate a mandatory evacuation of all residents in the lowest-lying areas of the parish. FirstCall enabled officials to connect instantly with residents in greatest danger. In some cases, the emergency notification system was activated several times throughout the week with updated messages, relaying evacuation routes, road closures, evening curfews, and availability of relief supplies.
 
Instant emergency notification also benefited first responders as the severity of Hurricane Rita’s imminent danger became clear. In West Baton Rouge Parish, parish leaders initiated FirstCall before Rita struck with messages activating all parish emergency response teams. On top of area-wide evacuation and shelter location notices, the FirstCall system provided emergency response teams with the most up-to-date information possible, affording first responders precious extra time to stage in ready position.

While FirstCall proved particularly effective in preparing for Katrina and Rita, other municipalities have utilized FirstCall’s priority-zone calling features in other disasters, including dangerous hazmat spills in Pasadena, California and a chemical fire in a residential area of Houston, Texas. In each case, including on the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, the instant priority notification provided by FirstCall and MapInfo Professional not only alerted those in greatest danger, but allowed local communities to prepare residents and first responders with localized, up-to-the-minute information that would otherwise be lost in the generalities of region-wide broadcasts.