Emergency management systems

  • Infrastructure protectionMaking buildings more tsunamis-resilient

    Often in disasters such as tsunamis, people escape the on-rushing wall of water by climbing to higher ground, called vertical evacuation. As people race to the third or fourth floor of a building, however, how do they know whether the building will hold up? Walls of water often carry with them cars, trucks, and 60,000-pound fully loaded cargo containers, transforming them into projectiles which slam into buildings with tremendous force. Most structural systems are designed to defy gravity, not a side kick from a shipping container. Engineers are now studying the impact of tsunami-carried debris in order to make buildings and other structures more disaster-resilient.

  • Emergency managementNew surveillance technologies for improved emergency management

    Researchers are working to design and build resilient streaming sensor networks for emergency response such as bushfires; experts say the emergency services sector can significantly improve the availability of critical information better to manage incidents by exploiting new and emerging surveillance strategies

  • Chemical plant securityMeasuring DHS effectiveness monitoring chemical plant safety standards

    The events of 9/11 triggered a national re-examination of the security of facilities that use or store hazardous chemicals in quantities which, in the event of a terrorist attack, could put large numbers of Americans at risk of serious injury or death; the GAO issued a report on how DHS ensures compliance with chemical facilities security standards

  • Rare Earth elementsChinese monopoly on rare Earth metals a challenge for green economy

    In order for clean technologies to contribute significantly to reducing greenhouse gases, the world would require an increase of neodymium and dysprosium – two of the seventeen rare Earth elements — of over 700 percent and 2,600 percent, respectively, in the next twenty-five years; the supply of these metals is currently increasing at 6 percent a year, and is under threat from China

    • AFCEA Homeland Security Conference
    view counter

  • Emergency responseUnion University bolsters emergency response with GPS 911 system

    In an effort to bolster its emergency response capabilities Union University in Tennessee recently installed an enhanced 911 system

  • Emergency servicesFlorida blood service upgrades storage systems

    Florida Blood Services has replaced three disparate storage systems with the Nimble CS240 converged storage array; FBS says the new storage operation allows FBS more efficient and centralized storage for FBS’s headquarters and forty field offices

  • Emergency communicationRI’s new emergency manager makes disaster communication key priority

    One of the top priorities for Theresa C. Murray, Rhode Island’s new executive director of emergency management, is communication particularly among government employees during a major attack or a disaster