Moreton Bay Regional Council: Improving community safety by warning residents of critical events
Overview
Located just north of Brisbane, Moreton Bay Regional Council is one of Australia’s fastest-growing regions with a population of more than 480,000 people.
The region of Moreton Bay also provides access to some of the most picturesque seascapes and the best nature reserves in the country. Given the diversity in its geography, the region is also prone to extreme weather conditions, such as flooding, bushfires, and storms.
The challenge
The Moreton Bay Regional Council required a platform to provide disaster management alerts to residents and complement existing warnings issued by the Bureau of Meteorology and other emergency service agencies.
The solution
Multichannel communications tool
The Whispir platform enables the Council to deliver a single message over multiple channels and provide timely and accurate information to residents - with large volumes of messages able to be sent out as efficiently as possible.
Single, cloud-based platorm
Moreton Bay Regional Council can manage community contact information by having it all accessible from within one system.
Standardised, accurate bulk messaging
By harnessing the power of the platform’s templated messaging capabilities, the Council can standardise all the communications that are sent out to residents and send highly-targeted messages to large numbers of residents at the same time – something that will provide an additional safeguard for any future natural disasters in the region.
Opt-in capabilities
The Council set up a section from within its website where members of the community could opt-in to receive warning alert messages about flood conditions and major dam releases in the region. The alert system makes it easy for local residents to access information by simply providing their details and contact channel preferences. They are then added to a contact list within the platform.
Geolocation enabled
Subscriber information is geo-coded so that the Council can create distribution lists from within the Whispir platform based on warning message type and region. Residents are then sent relevant alert messages, including possible dam releases and also flash flooding incidents, via SMS, voice message, or email. Social media is also being added.
The benefits
More efficient communication processes that save time
Being able to reach a large number of residents at once with one message is much more efficient than previous processes and saves valuable time.
Cater to resident's preferred method of contact
Whispir's multichannel messaging capabilities make it easy to reach the community via SMS, email, voice message, social media, or any combination of these.
Greater organisational resilience
Hosted and managed in the cloud, with Whispir, messages can be sent and received even if the company’s internal hardware systems fail.
The Whispir platform, together with the Council’s ‘MoretonAlert’ service, is improving community engagement by not only sending out warning messages more quickly but also by providing more targeted information based on each resident’s location.
Learn more by downloading our full case study
Learn more about how Moreton Bay Regional Council uses Whispir to engage with its bi-bilingual community by downloading the full case study.