Manhattan, NY, November 27, 2007 — BuildingLink’s new Emergency Phone Message Broadcast System made its “trial-by-flood” debut during an evacuation situation occurring at 90 West Street in Manhattan this week. A deluge of rain had caused overworked sewers at nearby Ground Zero to overflow, resulting in nonworking utilities and flooding in 90 West’s subbasement parking garage. The New York City Housing and Preservation Department ordered the building to close until full service was restored.

As the NYC Housing Department’s order-to-vacate went into effect, so did BuildingLink’s new bank of phone message servers and dialers. Although still in its beta testing stage, the emergency broadcasting system received an unexpected trial run, successfully launching evacuation announcements to more than 575 resident home phones and cell phones in less than twenty minutes. Thanks to BuildingLink’s rapid response, the building’s management was able to keep residents informed of rapidly changing information such as temporary hotel accommodations, insurance claims, and valuable resources such as animal kennels for their pets and services provided by The American Red Cross.

BuildingLink’s Emergency Phone Message Broadcast System is a vital addition to BuildingLink’s high-performance web-based platform for empowering property operations. Featuring a dialer that is capable of making 50 calls a minute, the system allows the average building to contact an entire resident population within 5-10 minutes of sending out an emergency announcement.

“We recognized a need for this system after the recent steam pipe explosion in midtown Manhattan. Thousands of residents were not allowed to return to their buildings for several hours, and building workers were stuck with the tedious task of calling each resident individually to inform them of the emergency. Our broadcast system alleviates these problems,” says BuildingLink’s President, Jerry Kestenbaum.

Lee Rosen, 90 West Street’s building manager, says that he was swamped with resident e-mail inquiries on the day of the flooding. BuildingLink’s phone message blast “worked like a charm,” rescuing his staff from the tedious and time-consuming task of individually responding to hundreds of e-mails and telephone messages from residents. Rosen especially appreciates the customized dialing feature, enabling the broadcast system to leave a voice mail announcement on every telephone number that a resident has listed with the building.

How does the system work? Each night, the BuildingLink system uploads all resident telephone numbers from each of the 350+ subscribing buildings, directly to the BuildingLink broadcast system. Building management personnel are able to access the system from any phone to send emergency broadcasts to the building(s) they are authorized, and cellular phone numbers can also be included during a high-level emergency situation. Managers can also access the system’s web interface to create custom notification lists, for example to notify only residents in the “D” and “E” lines of a water shut down. BuildingLink tracks and reports call progress and status so that building management is aware of which residents have been contacted and which residents require additional communication.

Rosen says: “Residents don’t always check their e-mails so the telephone announcement system is invaluable. If a resident has four telephone numbers listed in BuildingLink’s database, then BuildingLink’s Emergency Phone Message Broadcast System forwards a voice mail announcement to every single number! Between the e-mail blast and the telephone announcements, we were assured that all of our bases were covered. And when a week later it came time for the residents of 90 West to return home, BuildingLink’s broadcast system was there to welcome them back.”

The benefits of BuildingLink’s new service are substantial. The Emergency Phone Message Broadcast System provides current and future customers with the security of knowing that measures are in place to ensure rapid, consistent, and effective communication during a crisis situation. Kestenbaum says: “New York City’s Office of Emergency Management was onsite during the flooding at 90 West Street and they were very impressed by the quick dispersal of announcements to residents.”

The new emergency feature is available without additional cost to BuildingLink’s 350+ current buildings and to all new subscribers, in keeping with BuildingLink’s mission to constantly enhance its integrated platform and provide premium service and continual innovation to present and future clients.