Everbridge alert system helps find people missing from indigenous communities

Jennifer Jesty says she won’t soon forget the first Everbridge alert she sent about a missing girl.

The emergency resilience manager with the Union of Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq said the program wasn’t fully deployed when police reached out to her for help.

“It was about 45 minutes later [that police] called back and said, ‘Jennifer, how did you do that? She is home and safe with her family. You were able to do in 45 minutes what we couldn’t do in 24 hours.”

Jesty, a former paramedic and firefighter, speaks with Everbridge about the program and her hopes to expand it far beyond Cape Breton Island.