Case Study: Major Urban Center achieves faster, coordinated disaster response and saves lives with BlackBerry AtHoc

How This Major Urban Center Keeps Its People Safe During a Natural Disaster

This densely populated borough of nearly two million people—home to major events and heavy tourism—is vulnerable to earthquakes, floods and volcanic activity. Although officials had an advanced sensor network and public broadcast systems, their internal emergency response remained fragmented: delays in gathering information, poor two‑way communication with field personnel, and the need for a disaster‑resilient platform that would integrate with existing infrastructure drove the search for a better solution.

Working with a long‑time partner, the borough deployed BlackBerry AtHoc in three months to tie sensors, command centers, first responders and the public into a single, IP‑based alerting and collaboration system. AtHoc Alert and AtHoc Collect enabled automated multi‑channel notifications, geotagged field reports with photos and video, and pre‑configured templates—used by 120 officials including the mayor and emergency managers—to get boots on the ground faster, give citizens more evacuation time, accelerate relief distribution, complete post‑crisis diagnostics in eight days, and produce cost savings that more than cover the platform’s annual expense.