Historically, emergency warning systems arose out of the need to respond to fire and to war. The Great Fires of antiquity feasted on poorly constructed wooden buildings jammed so densely together, that an entire town could ignite in minutes and burn for days. In New Orleans (1788), 856 buildings burned in six hours. In Chicago (1871), 100,000 people lost their homes and 17,000 buildings were destroyed in fire that burned for three days. There are two historic blazes in New York City, three Great Fires of London and four times Constantinople has burned and so on. Credit goes to the survivors for developing the fire and life safety systems and practices that protect us today. While not impossible, fires of mass destruction are exceptions rather than the rule these days.
What will drive new frontiers in emergency notification in the future? Unsurprisingly, the usual suspects –natural disasters, man-made events and disease—will be waiting for us tomorrow. What kinds of systems will we require to respond?
Natural disasters
When Mother Nature flexes her muscles, the oceans rise, the earth cracks, wind, rain and fire come down from above. In the past decade, death tolls from natural disasters have been staggering. In Burma (2008) 138,000 people died in a cyclone. The Indian Ocean tsunami (2004) killed 280,000. Three earthquakes— Kazmir (2005), Sichuan (2008) and Haiti (2010) and two heat waves—Europe (2003) and Russia (2010) claimed approximately 300,000 lives.
Most long-range weather forecasts project more frequent and stronger storms driven by rising ocean temperatures for the next 50 years. A study released in October 2012 by Munich Re, the German reinsurance company, shows that the number of weather-related loss events in North America has nearly quintupled over the past three decades (http://www.munichre.com/en/group/focus/climate_change/default.aspx).
Most recently, Hurricane Sandy flooded New York City leaving millions stranded and without power. ”I’m told that now we have a 100 year storm every two years,” said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a press conference.
The good news is that through satellite imaging, advanced radar and other high-tech detection systems, the warning window for destructive storms, even tornados, has steadily increased. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will launch the GOES-R series of geo-stationary satellites into orbit in late 2015. According to Steven Goodman, GOES Senior Program Scientist, these satellites will be able to image storms up to five times faster than is done now and take 30 second update images of developing storms or hurricanes (http://www.goes-r.gov/mission/mission.html).
This eye-in-the-sky approach manifests itself in more effective emergency notification for systems that tie into the NOAA system and automatically target warnings to specific locations. Waiting until you see the funnel cloud on the horizon is no longer the rule of thumb. Notification systems that integrate with advanced weather detection, that can geo-target warnings to specific locations and overcome loss of power and network will help handle response efforts during natural disasters and be tomorrow’s moneymakers.
As in the past, tragic events haven driven disparate technologies through traditional barriers and onto the same landscape together. The most significant trend in the past 10 years has been the integration of physical security with information management – known as PSIM. The idea is that all security endpoints, such as cameras and keypads and sensors, are actually data points providing continuous raw data. That raw information is brought onto a software platform where it is monitored, analyzed and used to make better decisions. By applying the concepts of information management and business intelligence to the practices and technologies of physical and homeland security, tomorrow’s building, in essence, will be given a “brain”.
PSIM is the future
This is the wave of the future. Frost and Sullivan projects a 37.6 percent growth rate in the PSIM market between 2011 and 2015. Another telling example of this trend is the contrast in growth between analog and network video systems. According to IMS Research Senior Analyst and report author, Gary Wong, “Whilst the global analog video surveillance equipment market was relatively depressed in 2010, the network video surveillance market has continued grow almost three time as fast as the total market in 2010, over 30 percent.” IMS Research also forecasts that the growth of the network video surveillance market and the decline of the analog market will transition in 2014, with network video overtaking analog in terms of sales revenue (http://www.securitymarketintelligence.com/press_releases/The_Tipping_Point_Approaches_Network_Video_Surveillance_Equipment_Sales_to_Surpass_Analogue_in_2014.)
Why is this important and how does it tie into emergency notification? Remember, the role of emergency notification is not to prevent tragic events, but to manage crisis, minimize loss, expedite response and inform those affected how to help themselves. The foundation of successful emergency notification is information—knowing what is happening and being able to push actionable instructions to the right place at the right time. Emergency notification is a key component of an integrated PSIM platform. Notification systems that are able to provide two-way communications and can interact with IP video, access control and other detection systems will be tomorrow’s standard. Software platforms like Metis Secure’s are already allowing security professionals to integrate, monitor and control traditionally fragmented systems as emergency call for help systems, facility-based emergency notification, mass notification email and text alert systems, exit door alarms, gas detectors, handheld radios and IP phones, IP video and virtually any other IP-based device.
For systems integrators who focus on IT, the future is bright. The industry is responding to tomorrow’s needs today with the development of smart, data driven systems. It is as if the five senses have woken up and are beginning to work together.
Of course this is just the beginning. We have not touched on how drones and robots and nanotechnologies that operate in other fields may be integrated onto a PSIM platform. Nor have we contemplated the impact of a global disaster scenario. One engineer friend of mine speculated on the consequences of the reversal of the earth’s magnetic field caused by the flopping of the planet’s molten core. You can look it up (http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012-poleReversal.html)!
One thing is certain, when it happens, security integrators will be the ones bringing the tools together to help solve the problems of tomorrow.
