Case Study: Mississippi Emergency Management Agency achieves faster, more reliable emergency notifications with BlackBerry AtHoc

How BlackBerry AtHoc Provides Mississippi Emergency Management Agency their Cornerstone for Critical Information Notifcations

The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) coordinates state and local responders for hazards ranging from severe weather to incidents at the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station, and needed a highly reliable, flexible mass-notification system that supported SMS, mobile apps and IPAWS integration. Their previous platform, Nixle, lacked these capabilities, so MEMA sought a replacement that could deliver rapid, redundant alerts to thousands of stakeholders across multiple channels.

MEMA implemented BlackBerry AtHoc, deploying templates, training administrators and integrating the platform into operations; staff created 64 templates and 150 MEMA users (50 publishers) now operate alongside more than 2,000 statewide users. The result is faster, more reliable multi-channel alerts and better coordination—MEMA sent 2,406 notifications in 2017 (505 hazardous-materials warnings) and was able to issue 77 severe-weather warnings in about two hours during one outbreak—while planning further integrations such as an automated National Weather Service feed.

Mississippi Emergency Management Agency

Thomas Brewer

GIS Technology Offcer