In ultra-reliable Scandinavia,five million residents in Denmark and Sweden were without electricity on 23rd September for over four hours. The rush hour blackouts, which
affected North East America on 14th August and London exactly too weeks later on 28th August, were supposed to be one-off incidents.
In each of the three cases commuters had to be rescued from underground transport and office workers had to abandon tall buildings using the stairways. People were also trapped in elevators for several hours and it was difficult to establish full head count. Airports were shut down
and some hospitals and public services ran on emergency power. Although voice communications were jammed on mobile phones, text messages were able to get though because they utilise separate channels and asynchronous bandwidth.
In the event of blackouts or terrorist attacks, the chief mode of communication is usually the mobile telephone amongst individuals and yet very few companies can do mass texting to their personnel to alert them of critical developments. The main message from 9/11 emergency
planning studies is about having a fully evolved communication strategy that can save lives by reducing panic and giving directions to traumatised people on what to do post the incident.
In London, the police have been testing a mass-texting system with over 5,000 business organisations with a view to communicate with them as well as government departments in the event of a terrorist attack. An eMail and pager based alert system is already in place and can also be
used for more mundane activities like serious traffic disruption warnings, demonstration alerts or suspicious package announcements.
Modern society is hinged on electricity and access to information. If electricity is taken away, the best way of avoiding anxiety and panic driven feedback loops in emergency planning is via full and direct communication that is personalised to that particular individual or
organisation. No medium other than mobile phone or pager texting lends itself to those adverse conditions appropriately.

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