Superior Notification System Warns Of Storms

Monday, January 29th 2007, 8:40 pm

By: News On 6

Nearly everyone in Green Country was affected in some way by the ice storm. The News on 6 answered thousands of calls from schools and churches trying to get the message to students and parishioners that the weather had shut them down.

News on 6 anchor Tami Marler discovered one Tulsa company believes it has a better way to notify people things are shutdown.

The company is Superior Notification Systems and they have a high-tech way for schools, businesses and other organizations to save a lot of time.

"Instantaneous communication. We can send up to 3,000 voice messages a minute or 20,000 emails or text messages per minute," said Mike McCarthy with Superior Notification Systems.

McCarthy says his company received rave reviews from users of Superior Notification System after the recent ice storm that paralyzed much of the state.

Sand Springs Schools has a subscription and they can use SNS whenever they need to send a message to a large number of people.

"They would use it not only for weather emergencies, but everyday usage like tomorrow is report card day. Make sure your kid brings home the report card and you actually sign it to get it back to 'em," McCarthy said. "It enables that parent to receive a message on their home phone, their cell phone, text messaging. You name it, we can send it."

Key Personnel also uses SNS to reach its thousands of employees.

"During the ice storm I was able to send the messages from my house on my computer so it was incredibly helpful," said Deb McCaskey with Key Personnel.

McCaskey says a Key Personnel client in Bartlesville needed to tell an entire shift not to show up for work.

"So we were able to pull together all the names and numbers of people on the third shift, record one phone message and send it out and everybody gets it at the same time," she said.

McCaskey was able to confirm each employee received the message from her computer at home, saving her countless hours on the phone.

She says Key Personnel also uses SNS to target specific groups of employees with messages about specific job openings.

Mike McCarthy says entire school districts use SNS, but smaller groups, classes; school teams and clubs can also use the service. Subscribers get unlimited messages for a few bucks, per person, per year. McCarthy says one of his school officials was so happy after the ice storm he said he'd gladly pay double.