FlashAlert Portland has two service tiers available. Due to the huge number of organizations that want to make weather closure announcements, not all organizations can be served with on-air messages. But many can be accommodated through the media's websites. Thus, two tiers based on organization size and type are available.
• The basic service is for churches and smaller groups of at least 50 people. You may be asked for verification of size, because the media can be overwhelmed with too much info. It is free of charge and puts your emergency information onto the websites of the Portland TV stations, but not on air. You may register under four categories: private schools/daycares, churches, businesses and organizations. You will see your posted information on these sites:
katu.com
kgw.com
koin.com
kptv.com
and many radio and newspaper sites.
Register here for the basic service, if you meet the minimum size requirement.• The premium service is for groups that meet the size requirements below. Like the basic service, the information you post is placed on TV and radio websites. It also is delivered to radio announcers for on air use, and is displayed on TV screen crawls. This service includes access to news release distribution, account customization to reach people other than the media and the optional FlashAlert Texting system detailed below. This service carries a fee; click here for the schedule. Size requirements: private schools must enroll at least 125 students; daycares, post-secondary schools and organizations must have at least 200; and businesses must have at least 300 employees or have daily customer traffic of at least 300 people.
Register here for the premium service, if you meet the minimum size requirement.Please note that to protect your organization from false reports, your account must be authenticated - which may take up to 24 hours - so please register in advance of needing the service. No service is available for fewer than 50 people.
More about FlashAlert premium service
• Emergency Communications:
In emergencies, using any browser, you go to a web page where you can view the real-time status of other organizations. You input your organization's user name, password and message and get a confirmation message back.
Information is distributed to the news media in three ways.
1)Your information posts into a page for the media (FlashAlertPortland.net) as soon as it is received. The media can monitor the page, which automatically refreshes every 5 minutes. When the browser detects new information during a reload, it puts an alert up on the screen, even if the page is minimized.
2) Every 15 minutes, new or changed information is e-mailed to newsrooms at the addresses they request.
3) Also every 15 minutes, the list is “pushed” into news media web sites and in some cases, TV "crawls" or "tickers." The information automatically appears on their web pages, where the public can view it. Click here for example of TV station web use.
At 8 p.m., the system deletes the information and subscribers may begin placing information regarding the next day, for use in 10 and 11 p.m. television newscasts. Postings before 8 p.m. can be flgged that they pertain to the next day and are not deleted at 8 p.m.The public can see your information on TV and radio stations and their websites, as well as on a page for just your org to which you can link. The optional FlashAlert Texting (see below) allows you to send messages directly to parents, staff, students and others at the same time as the media.
What kind of emergency information is appropriate for FlashAlert?
The network is intended to provide the news media with accurate, time-sensitive information that impacts a large number of people. Airtime is in great demand during emergency situations. The news media will air information they deem appropriate; you will have greater success if you give them only what you really need to communicate. To prevent overloading the media, FlashAlert only carries information that pertains to 100 or more people.
• News Releases:
FlashAlert's second “channel” sends out non-emergency news releases as individual e-mails every 15 minutes. You choose which cities you wish your releases to be sent to, based on whether it is a local or regional issue. You can upload photos or PDFs or even a sound or video clip. The media gets hundreds of emails per day; FlashAlert helps them filter this mail and see items from local organizations first. The news releases are held on an archive web page for one month, during which time the media can go back and review them. Some news media publish the news releases on their web sites. Click here for an example of TV station web use.
• New Conference Announcements:
A separate channel allows you to announce news conferences. It emails the announcement to the same list of media that get news releases, but consolidates the announcements onto a separate page for the media to check, and for organizations to review before making a time/day decision.
Distribution
FlashAlert distributes to all media - radio, TV and daily and weekly newspapers - in the cities you choose. Since there is no cost to the media, all are included. View the media list here.
Customization and Your Own Page
In addition, you can add into your account the e-mail addresses of “business partners” - people whom you would like to receive your emergency message, news release or news conferences (in addition to the news media). And any time an organization’s name shows up to the media, it is as a link to the organization's home page, enabling the media to quickly get to their site.
And, organizations have a link to their FlashAlert information. This page brings together each organization’s emergency messages, news releases and news conferences. No more need to update your web site manually - just link from your home page. Click here to see an example.
FlashAlert Texting
“The parents in our district were starving for information and FlashAlert has been wonderful. The feedback -- off the charts. Once parents started missing information that other parents around them were getting from the service, the web hits doubled and tripled. More than 3,100 homes are now registered. FlashAlert has been a great avenue to communicate with parents beyond weather closures. We’ve used it in time of crisis, and for a number of other important informational items. We’ve also used it to drive folks to our district web site for even more information. FlashAlert has made me look like a million bucks in the eyes of parents.”
Joe Cole, former public information coordinator for Falcon School District, Colorado Springs
FlashAlert Texting is a companion service where the public, including parents, employees, reporters, etc., may self-register up to three email and cell phone text message addresses and receive your information at the same time as the news media. Your FlashAlert Texting account integrates with Twitter, a free instant messaging-like system growing in popularity. When your publics register, they trigger test messages to make sure they've entered addresses correctly and that messages get past their spam filters. Each summer, an opt-in message is sent to keep the database current. The addresses registered will not be provided to any person or organization. There is no charge to the public for this service, and a charge equal to the basic FlashAlert Newswire applies to organizations that have more than 100 people sign up. Click here for sample text you can use to explain to the public how to sign up for FlashAlert Texting. Click to see the FlashAlert.net page where you can refer your publics to.
NEW: FlashBite - send the media a voice recording or video on the go
This tool is available, at no additional cost, to those who need to get a verbal message (or sound bite) or even a video clip from your iPhone or Blackberry to the media but can't get to a computer. Here's how it works: using Voice Memos (iPhone), the Video Camera (iPhone 3GS), Voice Notes (Blackberry) or PureVoice (Palm), you email the file to FlashAlert, including a subject line telling what it's about. Your clips will be sent to the media based on the default cities you have already checked in your account. Please remember that video files can get very large (the iPhone video recorder files are about four megs per 30 seconds!) and that these messages should be of high priority. Police and fire clients will use this tool the most often.
Speed and reliability
E-mails are the delivery method of choice for news editors. They are faster than faxes, more accurate than phone calls and can be copy/pasted. FlashAlert is redundant in that stations can see information as it is posted (station web pages update automatically every 5 minutes with an alert function) or by the e-mails they receive every 15 minutes. The FlashAlert web sites are tested every 20 minutes by an independent monitoring company.
You may try out the system and send a test message on Monday mornings between 10 and 10:15 a.m. By doing tests at one time, everyone can try it out without sending dozens of test messages to the stations.
While FlashAlert resides on a group of servers with multiple power supplies, the Internet is an unregulated medium and performance cannot be guaranteed. Also, subscribers should take into account the reliability of their own Internet service provider (ISP) through which they access the network, as well as their home/office power supply. For redundancy, it is advisable to be able to call a colleague in another part of town, who subscribes to a different ISP, to be your backup.
Here's who is using FlashAlert in the Portland/Salem/SW Washington area: Participant list
Management
Craig Walker Communications, Inc., has managed emergency communications for the school districts in the Portland-Salem-Vancouver area for 30 years. The nearly unlimited capacity of the Internet has created the opportunity to bring in other regions and organizations. Users benefit from easy access to the news media, while the news media benefit from having an information clearinghouse. The automated nature of the network keeps costs low.
Cost
Click on the link and choose your region to see annual fees for unlimited use (September-August billing cycle, pro-rated after January 1). Note that the FlashAlert self-subscription feature is free up to 100 self-registrants, then carries an additional charge equivalent to FlashAlert. View fee schedule.
Credit card renewal
You may renew your subscription by check or by using a credit card through PayPal below. (You do not need a PayPal account, you can make a one-time payment.)
Try It
Take FlashAlert for a test drive. Click here for a "dummy" zone.
This page is for your use only, and should not be distributed to the public. The public may use any of the news media web sites that carry the info or sent to FlashAlert.net.
Do you post from a handheld device or want a shortcut to the login page? Bookmark this location: falogin.net
For more information about FlashAlert, email Craig@FlashAlert.net
(360) 834-1953 8 am - 6 pm Pacific Time, Camas, WA
And for those times when you want to make personal contact with the news media, Kesten Media produces news media directories that give you lots of information, organized in a way that lets you find what you need, and at a reasonable price. Kesten has directories available for Oregon, Washington and California. Visit them at KestenMedia.com