DIGITAL BILLBOARD OPERATORS ACROSS FLORIDA TO BROADCAST TEST EMERGENCY ALERTS DURING STATEWIDE HURRICANE EXERCISE MAY 23 - 26, 2011

The Florida Division of Emergency Management, in partnership with the Florida Outdoor Advertising Association (FOAA) and its operator members, will sponsor important test emergency alerts to be broadcast on digital billboards across Florida. This will occur in coordination with the start of the State Emergency Response Team’s Statewide Hurricane Exercise on May 23, 2011.

“This FOAA public alert system will help us ensure our residents and visitors get critical information should a real hurricane threaten our state this season,” said Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Bryan W. Koon. “We greatly appreciate this partnership with the FOAA and the dedication of its members to the safety and wellbeing of Floridians during disasters.”

The “TEST” emergency alert will be broadcast on May 23, 2011 between 12:00 – 2:00 p.m., and 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. In addition, FOAA members will also be donating space on their digital billboards statewide to raise awareness for hurricane preparedness by posting five different messages (based on space availability) from May 21 - May 31, 2011. The Division of Emergency Management will include the geo-location of each of these billboard sites on its publicly available GIS mapping tool – the Geospatial Assessment Tool for Operations and Response (GATOR) which is available at http://map.floridadisaster.org/gator/. This is an additional avenue for the public and emergency managers to access important information during any disaster event.

The goal of this test is to enable Florida’s general public to preview test emergency alerts for future reference in emergency situations. The list of all digital billboards in the state and a copy of the “TEST” emergency alert artwork are available upon request.

For more information on the Florida Outdoor Advertising Association, please visit www.FOAA.org, and for more about the Florida Division of Emergency Management and to GET A PLAN!, please visit: www.FloridaDisaster.org. Follow us on Twitter at www.Twitter.com/flsert and on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/FloridaSERT.