In our city, we've seen a very effective use of social media (FB and Twitter) for emergencies as small as wrecks (on the interstate, for instance, that can create traffic delays) or during a recent tornado to warn people to stay away from a particular commercial street. We were skeptical on the application and dissemination of information using this medium, at first. However, we have found that the local media outlets are MORE likely to report information given via social media than they were using traditional press releases. For the system to work multiple employees must have access to the accounts to ensure that messages are consistently dispatched.

I wasn't quite sure about what "Mission Critical teams" were. If you can share the intent/setup of such a group I'd be interested in understanding more. As for response times, are you proposing a "real time" dashboard that employees and elected officials can view performance? We've seen significant improvement (and a healthy amount of station competition) by just sharing performance each month internally.

I would agree with Tom regarding Social Media. We have had more luck getting a message out via Social Media to the media than written press releases.

As far as online dashboards, there are several vendors offering these including Vinelight Business Intelligence, Firehouse Software and a few others. They access the fire departments records management system and then post to a secure website. Very easy to use, read, access data, see trends, etc.

In regards to #2, 4 and 5, can you provide more information as to what they want to do? Are they inspecting residential homes or are you referring to multi-family housing?