Facebook Emergency Alerts Rolled Out for Local Government Agencies
After successful testing, Facebook emergency alerts are now available for local government officials to quickly alert the public of an impending emergency. This is great news because it should help ensure that more people receive emergency messages when there is still time to act upon them.
Background of the New Facebook Emergency Alerts
Facebook emergency alerts are only available to local government officials. The “local alerts” functionality allows officials to click on an icon, enter a description of the situation, and blast it out to local populations both within and surrounding municipal lines. Each alert is communicated to local Facebook users within their “notifications” feed so it is difficult to miss for people who are online at the time.
The social media company performed tests of the functionality with about 350 local government agencies – including Miami Beach – before rolling it out for use by any local government. These customized emergency alerts can generally be used for things like severe weather, power outages, active shooters, evacuation orders, boil emergencies, general police activity, traffic jams, and similar types of localized events.
And, although governments are limited to 35 alerts a month, so far none of the participating municipalities have come close to exceeding this threshold. This is a good thing because, in my opinion, local agencies should strive to minimize their use of Facebook emergency alerts in order to avoid a ‘boy who cried wolf’ type of effect. In other words, if too many alerts are pushed out, people will be less inclined to pay attention.
I’m all for this new Facebook functionality! The more channels that can be used to quickly communicate an emergency message, the better. This can only help local utilities as well, because people that are informed are less likely to be disruptive to recovery efforts. That alone makes the launch of Facebook emergency alerts a welcome addition!
