The Washington, DC Emergency Management Agency ("EMA") coordinates the nation capital's response to disasters, emergencies, severe weather conditions, and other catastrophic events. It works closely with other emergency response agencies, including the Metropolitan Police Department, the District of Columbia Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services, the Secret Service, U.S. Park Police and other District and federal agencies, as well as with the major utility companies and organizations such as the Red Cross and the Salvation Army. DC EMA responded to the September 11th attacks, as well as the anthrax crisis in October, 2001 on Capital Hill.

Before deploying the Roam Secure Alert Network (RSAN), EMA communicated and disseminated important information through a combination of paging devices from various carriers (such as Arch Wireless, and Mobile Comm), cellular phones from various carriers (Nextel, Verizon), e-mail, telephone and other devices. The system had several shortfalls, including the inability to communicate cross-carrier and device from a single source, and the inability to notify all users at all devices simultaneously, even when the phone lines are jammed as on September 11th, which caused numerous problems that came to light in the Washington Post in the weeks that followed.

Read more about this deployment: The Washington Post.