During the flood of spring 2018, the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS) opened an Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) to manage flood response throughout the 10,400 square kilometers of the South Okanagan, The EOC was managing numerous concurrent emergency situations and soon realized that effective communications had become the weak link. They integrated YodelME into the core EOC team to quickly provide effective communications between field staff and the EOC.

Here are 6 Benefits of Effective Communications Technology

1. An effective, standardized, communication tool for all emergency staff. Even when they were available, traditional communication tools such as cell phones, landline phones, radio, and word of mouth created fragmented and unrecorded communication, prone to bottlenecks, that ultimately could not be managed efficiently.

2. Enhanced situational awareness for all personnel. EOC leadership and staff quickly realized they could use YodelME mapping to accurately determine where their resources were located, receive more frequent and reliable status reports, and flag emerging issues all on one platform.

3. Improved decision making as a result of the improved situational awareness. Several critical decisions were made based on real-time YodelME communications, and with full knowledge of the situation.

4. Saftey and reporting. A regulation-compliant and efficient safety check-in and reporting system.

5. Reduced costs. You can manage costs based on knowing the required and actual deployment of resources, equipment, and materials.

6. A verifiable record of field-to-EOC communication and contractor deployment. YodelME’s resource tracking records were, after the incident, used to verify the accuracy of contractor invoicing which is a perennial issue in emergencies that, when rectified, can dramatically alter costs.

Learn more about the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen. Connect with YodelME.