NTI is pleased to announce that the City of Highland Village was awarded the 2007 Municipal Excellence Award in Communications for cities of less than 25,000. The award was announced at the Texas Municipal League Annual Conference and Exhibition, held in Dallas from November 6-9.
The city received the award for their "Outdoor Warning Siren Activation - A Decision-Making Guide," of which Connect-CTY is an integral part. This program was developed by the Highland Village police department as an easily adaptable and cost-effective Severe Weather Analysis and Response Model to help make accurate, timely decisions about activating outdoor warning siren systems for severe weather.
Dubbed the "Outdoor Warning Siren Activation - A Decision-Making Guide," this user-friendly guide includes a one-page worksheet that helps first responders quickly track storm progress, determine overall risk, and make a decision regarding siren system activation. During this process, first responders can coordinate with city officials to send emergency messages through the Connect-CTY service and warn residents of severe weather with instructions to monitor local weather television channels and radio programs. The messages also included information about the use of city warning sirens with specific information on what the sirens meant when they were alarmed.
Through a citywide education and awareness process, citizens were taught the purpose of outdoor warning sirens and the considerations involved in activating those sirens. This knowledge helped replace the residents' natural fear of the sirens with an appropriate level of safety concern and a deliberate plan of action.
"We applaud Highland Village city officials for taking the action to put together this award-winning, multi-modal communication plan to protect and serve the city's residents during extreme weather. One of the best ways to keep residents safe is through communication, and NTI is proud that the Connect-CTY service is part of Highland Village's emergency communication plan," said Robin D. Richards, Chairman and CEO of NTI. "With the Connect-CTY service, administrators have a powerful tool for multi-modal mass communication that is easy to use and can send messages to residents within minutes."
The Connect-CTY communication system enables community officials to send and track personalized voice messages in any language to tens of thousands of residents, businesses, and local officials in just minutes. To ensure that important messages and emergency response information reach recipients quickly, no matter what their preferred method of communication is, the Connect-CTY service sends voice and text messages through four different modes of communication:
-- Voice messages to home phones, work phones, cell phones, and even
emails
-- Text messages to cell phones, PDAs and other text-based devices
-- Written messages to e-mail accounts
-- Messages to TTY/TDD receiving devices for the hearing impaired
About The NTI Group
The NTI Group, Inc. (NTI), a Delaware corporation, is a privately held company that provides award winning communication systems designed specifically for local, regional, state, and Federal government entities. The Connect family of services enables rapid dissemination of critical information via voice and text devices using its premier mass notification engine designed to allow users to quickly and easily record and send time-based notifications to thousands of people in minutes using just a telephone. NTI makes and distributes the Connect-ED(R), Connect-CTY(R), Connect-GOV(R), and Connect-MIL(R) systems, allowing users to target specific groups and/or geographic regions within their database(s) and engage recipients in two-way communication by asking them to respond to questions via their telephone keypads.
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