波士顿爆炸案中的无名英雄

    导致三人死亡、数百人受伤的波士顿马拉松赛爆炸案发生后，美国特警、拆弹小组、地方警察以及很多提供信息的公民为最终击毙嫌犯发挥了重要作用，他们的贡献永远不会磨灭。但是还有一个默默无闻的参与者也在搜捕嫌犯的过程中贡献了自己的力量，它就是由加州格兰岱尔市的Everbridge公司开发的一个紧急预警平台。

    警方在逐街逐巷搜索嫌犯的过程中就是通过Everbridge的预警平台通知地方居民，同时确保他们的安全。在某个单位要进行预警时，只需要通过Everbridge按一个按钮，就可以发送出数千条信息，哪怕通信基站出现故障时也能使用。（这个系统可以通过Wi-Fi发送短消息）。波士顿马拉松爆炸案期间，当地不少企业利用这个系统确认员工的安全，医院也使用它来向医护人员发布指令，警方也利用它向居民发送安全警告和信息。沃特敦消防队队长马里奥•奥朗吉奥说：“我们非常希望限制人们外出，以便于执法人员在城中行动。它帮我们把这个信息以最快的速度传递了出去，帮了很大的忙。”他还补充道，在其中一次搜捕过程中，沃特敦的消防部门一度在１５分钟的时间内发送了１１,０００条信息，正是这次搜捕行动最终抓获了其中的一名嫌犯焦哈尔•特萨尔纳耶夫。

    据Everbridge公司ＣＥＯ杰里•艾勒特森介绍，Everbridge是在２００２年的９１１事件后创办的。传统的电话通知法由于经常十分低效，不适宜在２１世纪传播紧急预警信息，因此基本上已经被Everbridge所取代了。Everbridge的系统不仅可以发布信息，而且还鼓励收件人给予简短的回复，以便收集信息。比如像“你安全吗”或“你需要医疗帮助吗”等短信，让收件人有机会把重要的信息回复给政府机构。波士顿儿童医院（Children's Hospital）经常用Everbridge来给护士发送指令。爆炸案发生后的混乱期间，儿童医院使用了Everbridge系统召集员工参加重要的电话会议。如果放在过去，就必须通过电话挨个地向员工发传呼。这家医院的应急管理协调员尼古拉斯•列维特说：“信息变化得非常快，我们也需要一个快速发布信息的方法。”

    其它一些情况下，经过设置，Everbridge系统可以重复拨打人们的电话，直到他们接听为止，这个任务放在过去用传统的电话通知法几乎不可能完成。Everbridge公司ＣＥＯ艾勒特森说：“通讯本身可能不能改变人的生死，但它在改变人们的安全处境上大有可为。”Everbridge的客户现在可以用这套系统联系到３,５００万名美国人，不论他们身在都市的钢铁丛林里，还是在“龙卷风走廊”的荒原上。

    Manpower -- SWAT teams, bomb squads, K9 units, scores of local police officers, and citizens providing information -- will forever receive credit for bringing down the suspects linked to the Boston Marathon bombings that killed three and wounded hundreds. But there was another, little-noticed participant in the manhunt: an emergency alert platform created by Glendale, Calif.-based Everbridge.

    It was Everbridge's system that enabled officers to keep locals informed -- and safe -- as they tore through suburban streets in search of the suspects. Everbridge allows single entities to send thousands of messages at the push of a button, even if cell towers are down. (The system can send texts using Wi-Fi). During Boston's marathon bombings, local companies used the system to verify the safety of employees, hospitals used it to relay information to nurses, and police updated citizens with safety alerts and messages. "We really wanted to limit people being out [on the streets] so that those law enforcement folks could maneuver around the town," says Watertown Fire Chief Mario Orangio. "By getting that message out as quickly as we did, it helped immensely." At one point during the manhunt that resulted in the capture of suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Watertown Fire Department sent out 11,000 messages in a 15-minute span using Everbridge, he added.

    Everbridge, which was founded in 2002 following the September 11 attacks, has essentially replaced the phone tree, an inefficient and often ineffective way to spread emergency alerts in the 21st century. Everbridge's system not only sends out messages but also gathers information by prompting receivers to use short, simple responses. Questions like "Are you safe?" or "Do you need medical help?" are examples of messages that would allow receivers a chance to send important information back to authorities, says Everbridge CEO Jaime Ellertson. At Children's Hospital in Boston, Everbridge is used regularly to help staff nurses, says Nicholas Levitre, the hospital's emergency management coordinator. During the chaos following the bombings, Children's used the system to get nurses onto important conference calls, a task that used to require sending out individual pages using the telephone. "Information was changing so rapidly," says Levitre, "that we just needed a way to get it out quickly."

    In other instances, the Everbridge system can be programmed to repeatedly call people until they answer the phone, a task more or less impossible with the old phone tree system. "Communication by itself probably isn't the difference between life or death," says Ellertson, "but it certainly can be the difference between keeping people safe or not." Everbridge customers currently reach some 35 million Americans, from urban jungles to the plains of tornado alley.