IfG.CC - The Potsdam eGovernment Competence Center

The trust was the first ambulance service to use the system, which is scheduled to go live across the rest of the country within the next 18 months.

The digital radios provide paramedics and control room operators with improved communications with other emergency services, and will also ensure there will be better coverage for hand-portable radios and in rural areas.

Vergangenen Monat sind bereits in New York lokale Versuche durchgeführt worden. Von den Bundesbehörden fehlt allerdings dazu eine konkrete Stellungnahme, schließlich könnten genauere Informationen für Terroristen von Vorteil sein. Bei den Versuchen sind Mobilfunknetze örtlich begrenzt in vier New Yorker Straßentunneln abgeschaltet worden, in dem Brooklyn-Battery-Tunnel und im Queens-Midtown-Tunnel für zwei Tage, im Holland- und im Lincoln-Tunnel für zwei Wochen.

Just in time for National Preparedness Month - the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management (ADEM) has released ReadyAR, an emergency preparedness application, to the mobile market. ReadyAR provides planning and preparedness information, news and events from ADEM, contact information complete with Area and Local Coordinators in the event of an emergency.

Nigel Snoad, product manager for crisis response and civic innovation at Google, told Emergency Management how response and preparedness organizations can post information online in ways that make it easily searchable and shareable.

“In an immediate sense; we were a little spoiled last year,” Dr. William Schaffner, chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., told ABC News. “Last year, we had fewer influenza cases than had ever been recorded before.”

The Secure Worker Access Consortium (SWAC) program provides the tools necessary to build a trusted community of workers with the proper skill sets who can enter and re-enter a critical infrastructure zone during a crisis. The program is in place at some of our highest value targets, including the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, its bridges, airports and tunnels, as well as in other sensitive facilities throughout the region. The lessons learned are important, as is the mission of building trusted communities.

The Extension Service, through the university located in Fargo, launched the Winter Survival Kit app in November. The app is equipped with features to help drivers who are stranded in harsh weather conditions, said Bob Bertsch, an NDSU agricultural communication Web technology specialist who’s involved with the app’s development.

“We’ll be the first in the nation if we can mature this to fruition,” Parker said.

Parker announced this and other state business during a seminar on Tuesday, May 10, at the Government Technology Conference West, an annual event hosted by e.Republic Inc., Government Technology magazine’s parent company.

The California Earthquake Clearinghouse, a voluntary group designed to share knowledge among the scientific and engineering communities after an earthquake, is testing a new middleware that would create a virtual network to make knowledge sharing and response more effective.

The middleware, Unified Incident Command and Decision Support (UICDS), was developed through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate. It allows an organization at no cost to create a specialized application of how its members want to view and use data at the front end, while simultaneously translating that data into common national and international standard formats for any agency, including emergency responders, to use during an incident.

Patrick Blacklock, Yolo County executive, said the effort is "just one in a series of services we're taking a look at" to work on cooperatively and to jointly fund. "OES will be first."

The joint effort includes the cities of Woodland, Davis, West Sacramento and Winters, the Yolo County Housing Authority and the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation. The aim: eliminate the need for each locale to create and run its own emergency system.

A company called Rescu says it can enable people to get quicker help in emergencies — and help governments improve 911 services. The tool joins other efforts at upgrading dispatch tech in this increasingly mobile age.

As public agencies strive to upgrade technology in a national push, a San Diego-based company is positioning its new app as a way to help take pressure off hardworking emergency dispatchers.

The state launched its new website on Aug. 30, with one of the main features being a rotating news marquee that can be updated instantaneously. Other features include an improved and prominent search function, a more interactive menu and the ability to view live webcasts of legislative sessions and public meetings.

Estevan Lujan, public information officer of New Mexico’s Department of Information Technology, said that the state’s natural gas shortage in February and a severe wildfire season this year prompted officials to re-do New Mexico’s online presence.

Called the Atrus National AED Registry, the program is a Web-based database that records where automated external defibrillators (AEDs) are located and updates owners with reminders on manufacturer recalls and battery expiration dates for the devices. Local government health organizations and private medical providers in Nevada are now using a customized version of the registry, spearheaded by Nevada Project Heartbeat (NPH).

For Virginia, the most threatening weather incident this summer did not come as you might expect from a hurricane, but from what’s called a “derecho”: a widespread, long-lived windstorm with rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms.

Without official warning on June 29, a derecho swept across a large swath of the state. At the storm’s height, nearly 2.5 million residents were without power for as long as two weeks — the largest non-hurricane power outage in the state’s history. The situation was made worse by a long heat wave baking the region.

Harris, Galveston, Fort Bend and Brazoria counties in southeast Texas announced this week they will participate in the Gulf Coast Emergency Communications Network — a system that, in part, will help the Texas counties display alerts on digital billboards.  Eleven billboards throughout the four counties are currently incorporated into the network with four more slated for deployment within the next month.