URLs in WEAs

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

I am wondering which states have tried using a URL in their WEA message? I have heard that the amount of traffic that comes with an AMBER Alert is causing websites to crash. If you have tried using a URL, what worked for you? Did your site crash, and if so, how did you get around it? Any recommendations for developing something that can handle this?

[Ed Bertola]

Jillian,
I have a ton of information on this subject that I would be happy to share. In California, we use URLs in WEAs. There were many hurdles we had to cross and we tripped a few times getting the process down. We ‘crashed’ our website multiple times before finally working out our current solution. We have found a very notable increase in the number of people who receive actionable information and it has had a direct and positive increase in the amount and timelines of recoveries. Before this new system our estimate, was on average, a few hundred views of our information. On a recent activation, we had over 890K.

Truly, URLs in a WEA have made this a whole new ball game. I would be happy to talk to you about our process. Please let me know the best way to contact you and we can make it happen.

We were trying to make it to The AMBER Alert Conference in April to share what we have done, but were not able to make it happen. I hope we will have some opportunity in the near future to share to a larger audience.

Until then, one on one works great.

Ed Bertola
California Highway Patrol

[Anonymous]

Hi Jillian:

North Dakota uses URLs and have had problems with our site crashing. I would have to refer you to our IT experts for specific changes they have made to prevent future crashes. Please feel free to contact me.

Patrick C Hudson
Homeland Security Coordinator
North Dakota Highway Patrol
Office: 701-328-8169
Cell: 701-220-2278
[email protected]

[Kenny Sandusky]

Jillian,
Kentucky does not use URLs at this time.

[Anonymous]

Hello Ed,

Thank you for getting back to me. You can reach me at 303-239-4459 or at [email protected]

Thanks!

[Emily Keifer]

Ed,
I’d really be interested in hearing how your agency incorporated the use of urls. Tennessee has considered doing this but the primary driver for the initiative has been deployed with the military for 3 years. I’d love to have this in place before he returns (bragging rights). If you have a Best Practices document, that would really be great. Any information that you can provide will be helpful and appreciated.

[Anonymous]

Ed,

I am very interested in how your agency incorporated the use of urls. Any information would be appreciated. Arizona is looking at how we could utilize urls without crashing our website.

[Ed Bertola]

I would be happy to share all the information we have about using URLs in WEAs. It has been a long process to get to where we are now and we have seen significant benefits to the change in technology. This process can and should be duplicated wherever it can. We have been contacted by multiple states requesting the same information. I am looking into conducting a Webinar for all of those who are interested in learning more about what we do. This would include a good chunk for Q&As.

With that said, I am happy to answer questions in advance if you have any (and that goes for any other state coordinators or PIOs). If others can learn from our journey and use the information to be more effective, I would consider it a big win.

I don’t know if we are the busiest, but we have had quite a bit of experience and are always trying to improve the process. We use URLs in WEAs in all qualifying alerts, not just AMBER. Our 2019 Alert numbers, as of September, are as follows:
AMBER – 7
Blue – 2
Endangered Missing – 15
Silver – 168

Have a great day and thanks for asking,
Ed Bertola
916-843-4199
[email protected]

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