City of Inglewood

A city significantly improves communications to citizens and internal departments with the 3n mass notification system

The City of Inglewood is centrally located in Southern California and boasts a rapidly growing population of over 118,000 residents. Located on the shore of the Pacific Rim, Inglewood serves as a gateway to major commercial centers, both domestic and international.

Challenges

The City of Inglewood needed a fast, easy, and effective way to communicate with citizens, businesses, officials, and internal departments—such as Public Works, Parks and Recreation, City Administration, and the Police Department—in emergency and routine situations. After major disasters such as 9/11 and Hurri­cane Katrina, the City felt strongly that there was an inherent need within the IT infrastructure to lead an emergency management and disaster preparedness initiative. While the IT team has backup mechanisms in place within their data center to get systems back online in an emergency, they recognized a gap in their ability to assist administration, police personnel, and other departments with growing emergency communication needs. The City of Inglewood faced several key challenges with their limited communication capabilities:

• Slow process for citizen alerts. Contacting residents at a street-level breakdown in a critical situation was a difficult and time-consuming effort. During an emergency water shut-off, the Public Works department was unable to inform 200+ affected citizens of the imminent service interruption within a specific geographic area through traditional methods, which often in­volved sending out staff to knock on doors or pass out flyers.
• Inability to effectively assist other departments in times of need. The City of Inglewood’s IT infrastructure lacked the ability to quickly assist the Police Department, Public Works, Parks and Recreation, and Administration during time-sensitive situ­ations. Using a manual call tree, it could take the City’s 9-1-1 call center several hours to locate and communicate critical information to key emergency officials.

Solution

The City of Inglewood needed a reliable and effective communica­tion solution to send consistent information to a large, targeted audience in a short amount of time. The solution also needed to be easy-to-use and manageable for the average computer user so that the 150 staff members selected to use the system—most of which are department heads, administrators, and division managers—would be able to use the system not only in emergencies, but also internally for routine communications. The City required a smart and efficient 24/7 customer support team to quickly get internal users trained and confident in using the system. After evaluating a number of options, the City of Inglewood selected 3n’s InstaCom™ Citizen Alert system and achieved stellar results.

“3n is exactly what we need in a mass notification system. We realized an immediate return on investment in the speed in which we are able to communicate internally as well as with citizens. We know that we can react and respond accurately and efficiently to any event in a moment’s notice and would recommend 3n to any city with similar needs.”
– Michael D. Falkow, ITC Director

Results

• Enhanced emergency preparedness. The 3n mass notification system has improved the City of Ingle­wood’s ability to quickly notify citizens of disasters, potential hazards, and other public safety information. Because of the easy-to-use technology, City personnel can launch the 3n system in times of emergencies with minimal training or for day-to-day communications.
• Seamless communication amongst departments. The many departments that comprise the City of Inglewood can now actively work together to respond to emergency situations by using the 3n mass notifica­tion system, which has strengthened inter-departmental communication greatly.
• Demonstrated return on investment. The speed and accuracy in which both citizens and internal staff mem­bers can be notified of emergency and non-emergency information far surpasses previously time-consuming and costly methods of communication.