ElanTech today announced the successful deployment of its Incident Management Decision Support System (IMDSS) software during FEMA’s National Level Exercise 2011 (NLE 11) disaster simulation conducted at Murray State University. NLE 11 simulations test our Nation's ability to respond to and recover from catastrophic incidents impacting multiple states, all levels of government, and our communities and citizens.
The May 17, 2011 exercise simulated a building collapse and fire caused by an earthquake in the New Madrid earthquake zone. The exercise involved participation by the Murray State University Police, Murray City Fire Department, Calloway County Fire Department, local search and rescue, ambulance services, American Red Cross personnel and volunteer victims. Fire personnel deployed their equipment into a four-story dormitory with multiple fire events and victims on three floors and the exterior. The volunteer “victims” ranged in age from 9 to 80, wearing realistic makeup.
IMDSS is a software tool that aggregates diverse information pertinent to the management of an emergency into one geospatially organized digital dashboard. During this simulation, IMDSS was used to supply information to the Unified Incident Command and Decision Support (UICDS) platform developed by the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate. UICDS is a middleware foundation that enables emergency managers to make better, faster decisions and coordinate the efforts of first responders.
“For this exercise, IMDSS was used to create three events – a building collapse and fire, mass casualties and an equipment failure resulting in casualties,” said James Gantt, director of the Center for Telecommunications Systems Management at Murray State University. “Event data was made available nationally to UICDS users participating in NLE 11.”
IMDSS Mobile was also used to capture on-site photographs and other site data that was attached to the IMDSS events. The on-site information was automatically made available to UICDS users nationally.
“This simulation provided a robust and realistic demonstration of how IMDSS aggregates and visualizes disparate data for UICDS users locally and nationally,” says Swati D. Allen at ElanTech. “We’re very pleased with how well it performed in this complex, large-scale test.” IMDSS is based on ElanTech’s Sensor Analyst’s Geo-Intelligence Engine (SAGE®) product, which provides a cloud-based, service-oriented framework for the IMDSS to process and share data.
IMDSS was developed in cooperation with Murray State University through a contract from the Kentucky Critical Infrastructure Protection Program, managed by The National Institute For Hometown Security for the Department of Homeland Security.
About ElanTech, Inc. ElanTech is a government prime contractor specializing in software engineering and development of geointelligence solutions for commercial and government clients.
For more information, contact: Swati Allen Phone: 301-486-0600