There have been plans for years now to implement early warning systems for bushfire prone areas using SMS. Unfortunately, until the tragic fires that recently swept through Victoria, these plans have suffocated and died under a blanket of red tape. 

We provide a service that would fit this role well, especially in small to medium scale situations such as rural communities or school/university campuses. That’s our opinion anyway. 

Do you agree? Is an SMS warning system a good idea? 

Apparently there’s been a strongly positive response to these SMS warnings, even if the initial attempts had some people spooked. 

Victoria’s Emergency Services Commissioner, Bruce Esplin, says response to the text messages has been mostly positive. - ABC news

Especially in rural areas, the time cost of manually alerting hundreds or thousands of people is enormous. An auto-dialler would also be a consideration but when every second counts, being able to quickly punch out a warning requires the quickest mode of communication possible. An auto-dialler would also require a voice message to be recorded - far less efficient than typing a 160 character message through a web interface and remarkably less portable. 

Radio and Television warnings are both crucial, and I’m yet to see someone argue that they should be replaced by SMS. Indeed, after the Black Saturday fires it’s hard to imagine that there could ever be too much warning when some towns were engulfed in mere minutes. 

Obviously there are questions about how, when and to whom the messages would be sent. Early attempts have been effective but the tool is still a blunt one. We’re ready to hone and fine tune for this kind of application. It’s an important application regardless of our commercial interests. 

How would you use a PC based SMS service like ZapitSMS for emergencies?

Is there anything specific you can think of we should look into doing or changing for that use?