June 14, 2005: Less than six months after a tsunami devastated the Indian Ocean coastline and the world focused on the need for reliable disaster warnings, another disaster alert system failed, this time in California.
Israeli Efraim Petel wants to ensure that never happens again. His Martinez-based company, Hormann America, is distributing free software to “e-lert” the public in the event of a possible catastrophe.
Of course, no tsunami hit the California coast last June. But officials and public safety officers in many cities, including San Francisco, did not receive notice of the tsunami warning from the state per protocol, delaying local emergency response preparation by at least an hour and leaving millions of residents potentially vulnerable to the full brunt of a predictable disaster.
If citizens had had Hormann’s BamBox software, a warning would have popped up on their computer screens informing them of the nature of the possible disaster and recommending specific safety measures.
A year later, in July 2006, the California Office of Emergency Services signed an agreement to send out disaster warnings to users of Hormann’s Bambox software, which can be downloaded for free from the company’s Web site.
Petel says California is setting a great example for the rest of the planet. “If governments and companies world wide would use this XML-based [computer programming] standard, events like these tsunami warning disasters could be a thing of the past,” he said.
At the 100th anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake in April, Petel demonstrated how BamBox would have conveyed information about that disaster. “Fire warning: gas pipes damaged by earthquake” read an alert box, which went on to advise against attempting to use gas or electric power.
Petel, who grew up in a secular Jewish household in Petach Tikvah, founded Hormann in 1999 to “assist emergency response professionals with modern alerting and notification systems and products.”
In addition to the California OES contract, Hormann designs, installs and services alert and siren systems for many oil refineries in Contra Costa County (the alarms there can be heard for miles during tests), as well as for government facilities in Israel. Petel designed Israel’s Public Warning System when he was an officer in the Israeli Signal Corps, and in 2004 upgraded Israeli alert installations with “Red Dawn” technology, which sounds an alarm 15-40 seconds ahead of an incoming rocket explosion.
Petel believes his technology saved countless civilian lives in the recent conflict with Hezbollah, noting that Red Dawn alarms gave citizens enough notice to limit casualties to one on the war’s final day, which saw 250 rockets fall on Israeli soil.
“I started out installing siren and emergency broadcast systems in Israel, which unfortunately are still used too often,” said Petel. “Then I was asked to help Singapore, then Taiwan, build national warning systems. Now we’ve got digital technologies, reaching so many more people faster.”
Representatives of the Israeli army recently visited Petel to see a live demonstration of a Hormann alarm system installed at the Chevron refinery in Richmond. European Union officials have also taken note of Petel’s work, and an information technology committee has invited him to make a presentation about BamBox in October.
“Our system looks a lot likes Microsoft Windows,” Petel says. “We provide the operating system and then the user can install plug-and-play applications … We can pinpoint the right alert for a customer or area, and send it in seconds to your desktop, phone, fax.”
Petel says it’s a joy to specialize in technology that helps save lives, and that the humanitarian nature of Hormann’s work helps drive his employees.
“It is much easier to get them dedicated to their work,” he said. “They see what they are doing is very helpful and therefore we get very high-level people who care about satisfaction from helping others.”
The BamBox software is available for PC users to download at www.hormannamerica.com. A Mac version is in the works.