Dave Clark
“I got my alert on the Factal app at about 8:00 on a Saturday morning.”
In September 2022, an airport worker hijacked a plane in Mississippi. The now-pilot eventually threatened to crash into a Walmart, forcing a police evacuation. Atmos Energy’s Senior Security Analyst Diana Roca acted swiftly and confidently because Factal’s notifications were fast, verified and relevant to her.
“I jump on the computer to see, okay, ‘Is it verified? Is it not verified? What are we doing? What do we have nearby there?’” Roca says. “Immediately I’m able to notify people in the area: ‘Hey, this is what’s going on, we don’t know where this guy’s going to crash the plane.’”
Thanks to that mobile alert, Roca started to enact her response plan. Her team prepared to act if Atmos’ assets were destroyed or impacted.
“We immediately had our emergency crews on standby so that if he did blow something up, we are able to immediately scramble to whatever the area is, to mitigate or repair any damages that may be caused by that.”
Since Factal notifications are sourced from local media, verified and located by editors Roca was able to act on the alert with confidence. Knowing that there are always editors on duty, she could ask for more details in Factal chat.
“There’s not two eyes looking at everything for the company. There’s all those eyes plus mine. If I have a question regarding something, I have someone that I can ask. If I’m insecure about something and I don’t wanna relay some information, because I don’t know, I can ask.”
Chat, with real editors and other companies participating anonymously, is part of why Factal adds nearly three people to organizations that use Factal. Small teams have other people to lean on. Global teams know there’s someone looking for news in their area of responsibility around the clock. Factal editors are experts on different news events and different regions. They also coach each other, constantly sharing their learnings.
“The fact that I have a resource of live humans available 24/7 that are knowledgeable about – in this case I’m only needing North America – global events, that is worth its weight in gold.”
Roca and Atmos Energy have a regional focus, and take full advantage of Factal’s ability to deliver just the alerts that matter: major global news, incidents near points of interest and specific topics the team is following.
“You guys can filter noise so effectively that it makes my job so much easier.”
With less time spent sorting through noise and irrelevant events the Atmos team takes action faster, implementing their plans to keep people and assets safe. They’re faster, because Factal is faster, and more relevant.
“Management will “ask ‘When was it first reported? When did it first come out?’ Compared to the other sources that we have – nine out of 10 you beat it. That’s kind of one of my bragging things.”
Teams that use Factal have the advantage when responding to real-time threats. Whether it’s in Mississippi or on the other side of the globe, Factal has your back. No matter what time of day or type of event.
(Photo source: composite of FlightAware image and Factal app screenshot)
What is Factal?
Factal is verified, geolocated risk intelligence and crisis collaboration that helps resilience and security professionals protect people and operations.
Free for over 240 NGOs, Factal is an enterprise service that increases the size of security, risk and resilience teams by about three people. We enable your team to focus on strategic planning and to take the actions that save lives and protect assets.
Try Factal for free or talk with our sales team (sales@factal.com) for a demo.