Please Help /Advice - Emergency notification Website
 

I have been commissioned to build a site for a local town for emergency notifications.
I plan on using Drupal 7x for this project.

Scope of project:

In case of an emergency, the town wants the site to display a message notifying people of the
specific emergency (fire, flood, etc.)

They also people to log-in and input their address and info so they know where all the residents live.

During an emergency, they want a map to display where the emergency is and display in a different color.

They also want notifications to go out to all the residents in a specific area via Twitter, Facebook, Email,
Phone etc.

I do not have a lot of back-end experience, but it seems a lot of these items can be tackled with existing
tools. I have looked into a javascript library that can display map data http://raphaeljs.com/. I would like
to dip into the Google maps API for the map display portion, but I am not sure.

Any help, tips would be very much appreciated.

You'll need a database to hold all the user information, including all the ways they want to be notified (email, phone text). You'll have a page showing a form with all the fields needed.

You'll want to figure out how to key the emergency area with the users, perhaps by zip code.

Google Maps API will show the map and a pin showing where the location is, but someone has to be able to enter that information in by hand in a form, get the zip code of the area, type in the text notice to go out to all the people, then the back-end will send it to the recipients via the database, including a link to the map with the pin.

This all looks doable, but just how large is this area? A major city? Half a state? Since this is an emergency site, I would hate to be responsible for any problems. Get plenty of insurance!

For SMS messaging to cell phones, you would need to pay for a service. That might be expensive. A message on my cell phone would be best ... I always have my cell phone on me.

This project has been put on hold. Thanks for the replies.