News

Emergency Preparedness To Be Tested At MSU-Bozeman Friday, March 19

2004-03-19 13:30:00
Burns Telecom Center Montana State University – Bozeman campus

A barge laden with suspicious cargo is discovered in an Alaska harbor. A serious traffic accident on I-90 in Spokane leads to the discovery that a truck carrying dangerous cargo is bound for Bozeman.

March 11, 2004 — by MSU News Service

http://www.montana.edu/commserv/csnews/nwview.php?article=1571

Those are the central (and entirely fictitious) premises of a three-state communications exercise testing E-safety in the Northwest. E-safety is automated communication among agencies that’s meant to work both in everyday situations and in emergencies.

The demonstration will be conducted in the Burns Telecom Center on the Montana State University – Bozeman campus from 1:30 until 3 p.m. on Friday, March 19. The Center is located in the Engineering Physical Sciences building at the corner of 7th and Grant streets.

Sen. Conrad Burns will be present.

The demonstration will be a “tabletop” exercise to determine whether authorities in all three states are likely to be able to communicate quickly with one another in the event of an actual or potential disaster.

Cooperating emergency services agencies such as public safety 9-1-1 dispatchers, police and fire departments, military units, traffic management centers and hospitals in all three states will have made entries into a database called the Emergency Provider Access Directory, or EPAD. It’s EPAD that’s to be demonstrated and tested.

INVITATION TO JOIN

NW EPAD ONE DEMONSTRATION

DATE: Friday, March 19, 2004

TIME: 12:30 p.m. and ending 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time

EVENT LOCATION: State Emergency Operations Center at Camp Murray near Tacoma, I-5 Exit 122. RSVP to Teresa Lewis at 253-512-7012 or email [email protected] to gain access to attend in person on March 19. Light refreshments served. Arrive around noon to allow time for clearing security and finding parking.

WEB VIEWING OPTION: To attend by webcast from your office, simply log on with your high speed Internet browser at http://experience.wsu.edu/Esafety/Esafety.aspx. Enter your name, organization and e-mail address into the template. Click on submit and observe the event’s video broadcast and flow of exercise emergency messages from three states.

PURPOSE OF EVENT: Center to Bridge the Digital Divide and the ComCARE Alliance along with homeland security and public safety leaders from the states of Montana, Alaska and Washington are participating in a demonstration of new technology for faster, better response to emergencies. The NW EPAD One exercise shows how multi-state deployment of a shared emergency contact directory known as EPAD can save lives by enabling interoperable emergency communications across agency and jurisdictional boundaries.

Learn More! Observe! Participate! [email protected]

509-335-7038

More about the project: cbdd.wsu.edu/esafety/

More about EPAD and ComCARE: http://www.comcare.org

On-screen demonstration of how EPAD works: http://www.comcare.org/take_action/Comcare%20vision/mass%20disaster.swf

For more information contact Mike Vogel, MSU Extension Service specialist and director of the Extension Disaster Education Network (Montana EDEN), at (406) 994-3451, or via e-mail to

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