In an effort to post a topic that may be RELEVANT to Fairfax County Residents, please click on the link below.

The Fairfax County Community Emergency Alert Network is an emergency communication system used by governments, emergency management agencies and first responders to send emergency alerts, notifications and updates to your cell phone, pager, BlackBerry, PDA and/or e-mail account.

In the event of an emergency, such as a terrorist attack or severe weather incident, your organization's emergency management personnel will send important alerts, updates and instructions right to your cell phone or mobile device using your device's text message (SMS) feature, and/or to your e-mail account(s).

It's free and it's worth it.
Thanks

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/cean/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/2007 10:34AM by Tia2.

For those who spend your days in Arlington, or travel thru it, there is also one for Arlington county. It works pretty well too, sometimes (but not always) it will alert you if there are major delays on Metro.

http://www.arlingtonalert.com

I signed up for the alerts about a year ago and they were annoying, but now they seem to be more organized and not spam.

In a major disaster as we saw with Katrina, Cell towers can't be relied upon, actually the only thing you can depend on is the equipment in your control.

That being said, it would be cool, if all cell phones could be switched over to a sort of Peer-to-Peer network, where messages hop through cell phones to spread the message rather then cell towers. Only some people would have the ability to send messages but all cell phones would be able to receive and pass along to any other cell phones in the same area.

ham radio?


truth is, in real emergency, very few current technologies are capable of handling the demand.

Ham radio had been shown to be an excellent method of communicating in an emergency.

Too many people do not pay taxes and yet expect the government and private corporations (utilities) to support them in the event of an emergency. I dot not blame FEMA or the government at all for taking to long to help peopel in New Orleans. There was advance warning and people were told to get out. When the people disregarded such instructions, they decided that they would be able to help themselves. That means they should have had a method of storing and preparing food, a supply of water, and alternate places of shelter, and possibly modes of communication.The government should not be excpected to provide this. Utilities should not be expceted to funtion during and after such a disater. Why people do expect them to is a mystery to me.

Except HAM radio is limited to those who have licenses.

Ofcource noone gives a fuck about those, when real emergency happens.

See everyone has a cellphone, and everyone knows how to read a txt message. Everyone always keeps it close by. They all run on battery power, and work well in all sorts of weather conditions.

If my idea could become reality it would slove emargency alarts forever.

Hardely anyone uses HAM radio, and for the most part needs electricity to work, something you can't depend on.

Adam Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> See everyone has a cellphone, and everyone knows
> how to read a txt message. Everyone always keeps
> it close by. They all run on battery power, and
> work well in all sorts of weather conditions.

That is incorrect. If there is no power, cell phone towers wont work. Few have alternate sources of power. If there is high wind, a tower could be blown over. Lightning may strike a tower, and if the grounding has a fault, the tower will be fryed. Certain weather conditions may decrease signal strength, like satellite TV



> If my idea could become reality it would slove
> emargency alarts forever.
>
> Hardely anyone uses HAM radio, and for the most
> part needs electricity to work, something you
> can't depend on.

Anyone who has bothered to set up a ham radio probably has a generator.

What good are emergency alerts?

The dumb fucks around here can't observe basic traffic laws...and they're going to follow directions in an emergency? C'mon!

all the counties use the same company for their systems. this is an effort to sabatoge the system by dividing system into small parts thus leaving plenty of people out of the loop of the areas not far from them.

this page has a map to pages that have rss feeds: http://www.roamsecure.net/ncr.php

here are the rss feeds for virginia and DV.

Fairfax County
Arlington County
Loudoun County
City of Falls Church
Prince William County
City of Manassas Park
City of Manassas
City of Alexandria
District of Columbia

there are ones also maryland if you want.


"the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."