LSI Emergency Alert Messaging Case Study:

Club Texting - Case Study
LSI Corporation Kansas

Objectives:
In the wake of the recent tornados that ripped through Kansas, local LSI Corporation employees set up a text-messaging alert system to ensure that residents of Greenburg could get urgent information quickly. A secondary goal was to comfort victims whose lives had been torn apart by letting them know there were people working to make things better.

Solution:
Two LSI Corporation employees--Patty Crowel and Kim Gamble--along with Paula Stout--turned to Club Texting to setup a text messaging communications system.

The situation on the ground was difficult. Rumors were rampant, and there was no way to learn or verify information. No phones. No computers. No televisions. No radios. “Suddenly, the whole communication world we know doesn't exist,” Crowell said. “You can’t get basic information.

“But Kim and I noticed that everyone had a cell phone strapped to his or her hip. It was the one thing they had.”

They learned that the state had brought in an emergency cell tower – the regular ones had been destroyed along with everything else. Crowell and Gamble realized that if they set up a text-messaging alert system, people could be connected to vital information.

Recruiting Stout, an instructional developer of technology-based training in the Engenio Storage Group, they set up a text-messaging alert system and quickly produced flyers describing the program and how to sign up.

“We also asked people to help friends and neighbors use text messaging,” she added. “Many people with cell phones had never used that feature before.”

Outcome:
Within three hours of handing out the first flyer, 47 people had signed up for the Club Texting-powered service. A week later that number had reached 177, and subscribers continue to join at a rate of 10 per day.

Crowell and Stout sent out the messages during the first four days, but after they returned to Wichita, it was up to Gamble to keep the information flowing. “Kim had never sent a text message in her life,” said Crowell. “Now she is sending them all out.”

In the first week, about 40 messages were sent dealing with everything from where people could find volunteers to the times and dates of meetings about the tornado recovery effort.

As Jack Molets of LSI Employee Communications writes, "It will take Greensburg many years to recover from the destruction, and nobody knows how long the text-messaging alert system will be needed. What everyone does know is that Crowell, Stout and other LSI volunteers brought help and hope, and made it possible for the people of Greensburg to re-connect to the world and each other during the most tragic days of their lives."

Read an article about LSI Corp's Club Texting-powered efforts in Kansas @ The Wichita Eagle or view as an Adobe PDF.

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