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Provider of notification systems Everbridgehas announced its collaboration with partner AccuWeather and organizations in the Gulf and Atlantic Coast regions to ramp up emergency preparedness efforts in light of extreme 2010 hurricane season predictions.

June 1 has been marked the official start of the season. "Current predictions are that we will see a near-record number of storm threats from the tropics to the U.S. coastline, potentially rivaling 2008," said Joe Bastardi, renowned hurricane forecaster and chief long-range meteorologist at AccuWeather.

Everbridge has said that it encourages organizations to brace for the worst by preparing effective warning and evacuation messages, auditing current communications systems and plans, and notifying citizens of new approaches to managing the dangers of severe weather.

Galveston, TX, the barrier island that saw the worst impact of Hurricane Ike, "successfully" used Everbridge Aware (News - Alert) issue mandatory evacuations to over 50,000 citizens, implement road closures, coordinate first-responder activity and more.

Company officials said that it's building off of its experience during Ike, and has deployed Everbridge SmartGIS to strengthen its hurricane readiness efforts.    

Everbridge SmartGIS leverages geo-location, real-time polling, and customizable, detailed recipient profiles. Company officials said that Everbridge SmartGIS enables first responders to better assess and pinpoint those in need, while providing citizens the timely information they need to stay safe.

With this rich map-based communication technology, users can contact thousands of people based on their location with life-saving information, quickly via all forms of communication --home phones, mobile phones, email, text messaging, instant messaging, pagers, fax and other mediums.

Company officials said that cities, counties, utilities, 911 call centers and other organizations rely on Everbridge SmartGIS to keep millions of citizens informed during emergencies. Moreover, Everbridge SmartGIS is integrated with AccuWeather to deliver customized weather alerts and warnings to organizations in the path of dangerous, severe weather.

"Being prepared for the worst can greatly mitigate the impact of disasters, and we are urging organizations in hurricane-prone regions to evaluate their plan or perhaps put new plans in place, in time for the storm season," Cinta Putra, CEO at Everbridge.

Earlier this year in April, The Greater Cincinnati Health Council selected Everbridge as the new contract vendor for emergency notification services.