September is National Emergency Preparedness Month
September 18th, 2009With September being National Emergency Preparedness Month, the A/V industry has many products that can contribute to emergency warning, evacuation and crowd control.
Whether a disaster strikes in a high rise tower or a college campus, the first indicator for public attention is a siren or alarm. Someone smells smoke, and the fire alarm is pulled. Orderly evacuation should follow.
Helpful tools during evacuation include: rope lighting along an evacuation pathway, prerecorded instructions over an intercom system and live instructions over a portable public address system.
Post evacuation crowds provide a new set of challenges. Campus administrators who provide updates to the students find:
- Anxiety level is reduced
- Current safety and security confidence is increased
- Appropriate behavior prevails under the circumstances
Portable public address systems need to be loud and most importantly clear. Lower frequencies in the speech band reproduce a warm speech sound with higher intelligibility.
The effectiveness of a P.A. is measured in real life experiences. The person in the remote corner of the assembly area must be able to hear instructions as well as the person up front. Multiple sound systems may be required to cover the crowd size.
A portable public address system must be ready to use at all times. A system that charges the batteries 24/7 is reliable for emergency announcements and just might save a life.
