Communicating in Disaster Recovery Mode
Hurricane Ike left 97% of Houstonians without power. Some lost phones, especially those who bundled thier phone service with Comcast. Personally, I was without power for 13 days. Our church lost phones for 6 days. In a situation like this, communication with our church family was a challenge. Through it all, we learned some things….
1. Verizon Wireless seemed untouched by the storm while other cell phone networks were trash. Note to self: IT personnel should NOT use any cell provider other than Verizon. It is not fun when generator goes down, servers go dark and you CAN'T call your network admin (who uses an iPhone)!!!
2. Incorporate into your Disaster Recovery plan a 3rd party communication provider that supports multiple forms of communication…especially phones. We used a company called AlertNow to make 18,000 phone calls to our membership. We uploaded a .wav file and imported the home and cell phone numbers of our members….and within a few hours all the phone calls were made. AlertNow said they could make 4,000 calls a minute from thier system. WOW! (IMPORTANT NOTE: AlertNow does not provide one-off phone call blitzes. They are more designed for a subscription based model. However, there are other solution providers. They made an exception for us given our circumstances.
About Equip Them
Equip Them focuses on technology as tools for evangelism and spiritual formation in the church and family. It is the personal blog of David Drinnon, pastor and Director of Information Technology and Websites at Second Baptist Church, Houston, TX. The opinions and views expressed on this site are his own and do not necessarily represent those of his church.
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