For Immediate And Effective Hurricane Communication, Schools And Municipalities Relied On Global Connect

MAYS LANDING, N.J., Nov. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- When municipalities and schools on the East Coast needed to reach residents and students with information related to Hurricane Sandy, they turned to Global Connect's state-of-the-art notification system.

"Our thoughts are with those who are recovering from Hurricane Sandy," said Darrin Bird, Chief Operating Officer of Global Connect. "As a New Jersey-based company, we are particularly concerned with helping each other recover from the storm, especially since many of our own employees, friends and neighbors have been impacted."

Throughout the super-storm, the notification system performed at the highest level imaginable, making more than 50 million telephone calls between October 26 and October 31, and making more than 11.4 million calls in a single day ( October 30). During prime call times, the system made over 1.5 million calls per hour with no service interruption at any point.

Global Connect's employees showed their concern for those affected by the storm by volunteering many hours of their own time to help customers make their emergency calls. The company also organized a Hurricane Relief Drive to collect food, clothing, toiletries and other essential supplies for hurricane victims.

The speed and functionality of Global Connect's notification system make it a natural choice for school officials and emergency management personnel who need to reach contacts quickly and efficiently with an urgent message. Features that are particularly useful in the case of an emergency such as Hurricane Sandy are:

• Customized mapping capability – Clients can create a customized list of call recipients in flood-prone neighborhoods and other vulnerable areas by selecting a specific area on a map of the municipality.
• Instant callback – With this feature, residents who need additional information or require special assistance can make a return call to a designated telephone number with the press of a single key on their telephone keypad.
• Remote access and deployment – Officials have the ability to deploy a message at any time, from any location. Only a telephone is required to record and send a broadcast.
• Real-Time Reporting – Officials can determine immediately which residents have been reached by telephone, and which have received messages. The system will continue to call residents who have not been reached as frequently and as many times as desired.

The capacity and system redundancy offered by Global Connect resulted in numerous requests from communities and schools who had never used the system, but needed a reliable way to reach contacts. "Communities and schools that were previously using other notification systems began calling us because their current providers were either not available or did not have the capacity to handle their calls," said Bird.

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