Environmental Detection of Microbial Weapons
Klaus Nusslein, Dept of Microbiology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA

The Use of GIS to Coordinate  Medical Response in Case of Environmental Terrorism
Richard Wait, Baystate Medical Center, Springfield, MA

Coordination of Emergency Response Actions Using an Integrated Decision Framework
Abhi Deshmukh, Dept of Mech and Industrial Eng, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 

National Guard Response to Environmental Terrorism – A Review of Homeland Defense Initiatives
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Hook, National Guard Bureau, Arlington, VA   

Wireless TeleCare for Mass Casualty Situations
Aura Ganz, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA

Coordination of Emergency Response Actions Using an Integrated Decision Framework

Abhi Deshmukh, Dept of Mech and Industrial Eng, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA

Recent terrorist attacks on the US soil, massive electric grid outages in the northeast, and significant losses due to wildfires in the western states have made it clear that assessing vulnerabilities in the key elements of social infrastructures and responding to these events in an effective and timely manner is a challenge that has yet to be overcome. In many cases first responders and emergency care providers did not have accurate information, localized gridlock in the ground transportation network caused massive delays in evacuation, food and water supplies were disrupted for several days after the disasters, air transportation system came to a standstill, area hospitals and health care providers saw demand surge in some areas whereas others were sitting idle waiting for patients. The defining characteristics of emergency situations that make coordination and effective management difficult are uncertainty/ noise/ granularity of available information, continually evolving situations, interdependence between different processes and infrastructures, and the rarity of the event. This paper presents a comprehensive emergency response framework that will 1) allow first responders to make decisions based on real-time information made possible by the integration of hardware, application and policy/decision-making layers, 2) allow participants to evaluate the impact of their local decisions and processes on the overall situation and 3) allow emergency personnel to train for rare events using realistic models. This paper will specifically focus on information architectures and decision tools to allow effective emergency response management.

National Guard Response to Environmental Terrorism – A Review of Homeland Defense Initiative

Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Hook, Chief, Homeland Defense Division, National Guard Bureau, Suite 5700, 1411 Jefferson Davis Hwy., Arlington, VA  22202, Tel: 703-607-1724, Fax: 703-607-0040, Email : thomas.hook@ngb.ang.af.mil

Prior to the attacks of September 11, 2001, the National Guard had begun to establish units designed to designed to provide consequence management support to local and state agencies following a terrorist incident involving Weapons of Mass Destruction.  These units, known as Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Teams, conduct sampling and analysis of radiological, chemical, and biological materials following an incident, and can also conduct monitoring prior to an incident.  The teams also provide a plume modeling capability, and can assist local agencies with communication interoperability and technical reachback. The National Guard now has 32 of these teams located in 31 states, and is in the process of adding 23 more teams.  In addition to these teams, the National Guard is providing training and equipment to selected units in order to establish a regional casualty decontamination capability that can assist other local and state agencies at an incident site.  With the possibility that terrorists may use environmental terrorism, such as an attack on an industrial facility in an effort to cause casualties and damage the US economy, these National Guard initiatives provide a critical response capability that addresses the response gap between the arrival of the emergency responders immediately following the incident and the deployment of Federal assets to the incident site.  

Wireless TeleCare for Mass Casualty Situations

Aura Ganz, Multimedia Networks Laboratory, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA

A quick setup of an effective communication system that supports the limited resources of the trauma team treating mass casualty events can reduce mortality and morbidity.  Since mass casualty events can happen due to natural disasters, terrorism, transportation accidents, and epidemic diseases at unexpected locations, deficiencies of medical resources and traditional communication systems are certain. It is expected that traditional communication infrastructures such as landline wires and communication towers will default and be damaged. We present the challenges and proposed solution developed at the Multimedia Networks Laboratory at UMASS to deploying an ad-hoc wireless network. Such solution will support the communication needs of tens and hundreds of patients and personnel, increasing the effectiveness of the medical and rescue operations. Each client (e.g., patient, trauma team, logistic personnel) will be equipped with a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) that supports medical needs, can be connected to a plurality of medical devices provisioning vital life signals, and support the ad-hoc wireless network internal needs. The proposed architecture employs off-the-shelf Wi-Fi IEEE 802.11 standard hardware which will be equipped with our developed software.

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