Abstract

Enhancing Customer Emergency Notification Performance and Accountability
Track: Disaster Management and Emergency Response
Authors: Priya Tallam

Emergency notification of water customers for water quality issues such as a boil order notice requires urgent and efficient response. California Water has re-engineered our emergency notification process to optimize management control, notification accuracy, and quick response. We are deploying a GIS based emergency notification event management application that integrates information and processes from hydraulic modeling, water quality, automated phone notification, field personnel route optimization, notification process monitoring, and event data recording. The integration of these systems through GIS based application provides customer targeting and notification significantly faster and more accurate than prior process. The GIS application is designed for ease of use by management and technical staff with an intuitive user interface. Participants will learn how the GIS facilitates accurate identification and rapid notification of affected customers, what is needed to effectively deploy a new notification process, and lessons learned from our implementation.