 This is COMNET. Within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the National Disaster Medical System is responsible for supporting the federal medical response to major emergencies. Lee Moody looks at the NDMS and finds out how it can benefit victims, responders, and animals. There's a website that is becoming the first stop for responders looking for equipment-related information. Mark Everson shows us what every responder needs to know about the responder knowledge base. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory is working on a system that will help rural law enforcement agencies quickly gather and share information about criminal activity. John Eastman traveled to Tennessee to find out more about the universal communication and investigation concept. COMNET is sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security, Office for Domestic Preparedness, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Coming to you from the facilities of the National Terrorism Preparedness Institute at the Southeastern Public Safety Institute of St. Petersburg College. Here are Al Rochelle and Jennifer Holloway. Welcome to COMNET, the communications, news, equipment, and training magazine. This program presents weapons of mass destruction related awareness information for the nation's civilian and military response communities. COMNET is being distributed over government and commercial information networks, and is being streamed over the World Wide Web at terrorism.spcollege.edu. We invite you to visit the NTPI website for further details on the information provided during today's program. Continuing education units can be earned for viewing COMNET programs. To register for those CEUs, go to the NTPI website and click on the Continuing Education Units link under Training. This link will take you through the registration process and the login process. Now, after you login, you'll be able to view program videos, take the program exam, and fill out an evaluation form. With an exam grade of 75% or better, you will immediately receive an online CEU certificate. After viewing COMNET, please complete a viewer evaluation of the program. Your input and comments are, as always, very important to us. Within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the National Disaster Medical System is responsible for supporting the federal medical response to major emergencies. Lee Moody looks at the NDMS to find out more about its national capability to deliver quality medical care to the victims of and responders to a domestic disaster. I think everyone, particularly in this post-911 world, is aware that we have these events that happen, whether it's the tsunami somewhere else or our own emergencies here. And if you compare that to the fact that NDMS is this nation's only medical surge capability, this is the only program in the United States government that allows physicians, nurses, paramedics, all of these specialists to help out at any of these events. That's what we're there for. The need is greater than ever to improve the ways in which medical care is delivered to victims of disasters. In order to address this need, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security maintains the National Disaster Medical System. NDMS is a nationwide medical response system that supplements states and local emergency resources during disasters or major emergencies. NDMS is a partnership between four federal agencies, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense. As a partnership, they divided the responsibilities of the three main components of NDMS. First, they established the components, which are the medical response component, the patient evacuation component, and the definitive care or in-hospital care component. And the medical response component was basically taken up by our office. At that time, we were under the Department of Health and Human Services. We were called the Office of Emergency Preparedness. And we had established then private sector volunteer disaster medical teams. The second component is the patient evacuation component. The lead for that was given to the Department of Defense since they have most of the federal aircraft and transportation assets within the federal government. The hospital or the definitive care component is jointly shared between the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense. Through their federal coordinating centers, which are a part of their medical facilities, either VA medical center or Department of Defense medical treatment facility. The organizational structure has changed. Under the FRP, the title of emergency support function eight was health and medical. It's still basically the same, but now it's just saying health and medical like it was one aspect, we're really sort of dividing it into two. When we say health, we mean more along the lines of public health. And we talk about medical, we're talking more medical response. And that's the delineation between the health and human services resources. CDC, for example, that's clearly a public health component, checking on water supplies, food supplies, epidemiology. That's beyond the capability of our medical response teams. The mission of the National Disaster Medical System is to deliver quality medical care during a domestic disaster. This is accomplished by teams of volunteer medical professionals that include a wide range of skills. One of these teams is the Disaster Medical Assistance Team, or DMAT. Each team has a sponsoring organization such as a major medical center, public health agency or private organization that signs a memorandum of agreement with DHS. The sponsor then organizes the team and recruits members, arranges training and coordinates the dispatch of the team. Teams are made up of a broad spectrum. We talk about medical teams and so everyone assumes that we have physicians and nurses and paramedics and so forth. And indeed we do, but it's not limited to the clinical personnel. We have communications specialists, safety and security specialists. Certainly we have logistics personnel who sit up and run the camp and the tents and so forth. Administrative personnel for the obvious reasons. We literally have a very broad spectrum of personnel that make up the team. And again, that's part of the self-sufficiency. We want to be able to treat patients, but the first rule is that we have to take care of our own. It does not do us any good to go into a community and say we're here to help as soon as you help us with food, water, where we're going to spend the night, anything like that. So we go into a community capable of doing all of that on our own instead of it takes people to do all of the pieces of that puzzle. The teams are comprised of clinical, medical professionals and paraprofessionals and some augmentation support staff for that. And they have the capability to be rapidly deployed to a disaster area and perform primary care, short-term acute care, stabilization, assist in evacuation of patients, and also to, as personnel, to augment local hospitals when they need just medical personnel augmentation. To start with, they are in various communities around the country. We have 55 of the DMATs in different stages of development. Our highest level teams are what we call Type 1 DMATs, and they are fully self-sufficient, ready to go with personnel, equipment, supplies, communications, water. Literally, the MASH example is probably the best one I can give. They are literally mobile emergency rooms using tents and generators for electricity. Each team is run by a local command structure with some sort of local sponsoring agency, and those vary quite a bit. But somebody sponsors the team in the local community. Our better teams have at least 100 people because we're trying to deploy with 35. And because we're talking about civilians who, you know, have to be able to leave work and leave their family and everything, we can't have 100% of our people leave 100% of the time. So a 35-person team requires about three or four for every one individual that leaves. And in general, again, our top teams, we say, within 12 to 24 hours, we want them moving, if not, on the ground at the location. They also bring, have pharmaceutical cash, they have medical equipment to be able to perform their missions, and they can, and they have enough equipment to self-sustain themselves for at least 72-hour period of time. Well, before they roll in, we will have had some of our regional emergency coordination personnel go into the area and start doing an assessment as part of the overall FEMA Homeland Security Rapid Needs Assessment. They will be looking specifically at health and medical needs in the community or communities and determine where best we can fit in, if anywhere. No team has done the same thing twice in a row. So we might, this time, we might go out and set up a freestanding clinic in a parking lot somewhere so that people don't have to leave their neighborhoods because of damage and whatnot. Or we might actually set up an emergency room. We might set up as a triage facility in front of an existing emergency room to lessen their burden. It really varies according to the situation. We're fairly flexible. Another key component of the National Disaster Medical System is the federal coordinating centers. These centers coordinate exercise development and emergency plans with local hospitals. These hospitals can then be used in patient reception when the NDMS is activated. Also, under the new National Response Plan, NDMS is assigned to provide victim identification and mortuary services. In order to accomplish this mission, the disaster mortuary operational response teams were developed. These teams are comprised of funeral directors, morticians, forensic pathologists, anthropologists, forensic anthropologists, even mental health personnel that are part of the team. And what they generally do is perform those missions of identifying the victims when needed and providing the mortuary support. They report to the local medical examiner because the local medical examiner by state laws are in charge of this type of activity. And usually when they're overwhelmed, they will ask for federal assistance and the demorts will provide that. We have 10 demorts, one in each of the federal regions, and we have one additional demort that is capable of decontaminating remains. We call them the WMD demort. They are the interface between a location where there might be contaminated victims, contaminated, deceased victims, and the demort that's going to process those victims. So we bring in the demort WMD, they dress out and protect the equipment and do the decontamination of the remains and then hand them off to the demort or the local medical examiner, whatever the case might be. The Department of Homeland Security, in support of the demort program, maintains two additional disaster portable morgue units. The DPMUs are stockpiles of equipment and supplies that can be used during a disaster. They also contain a complete morgue with designated workstations. There's one stored in Rockville, Maryland, in a warehouse for the eastern part of the U.S. and the other half of the U.S. there's one stored at Moffitt Field near San Francisco. It's a large unit capable of performing preserving victims and being able to perform the missions in perhaps an austere environment when there's no regular morgue available out in the field. As one can imagine, the need for training among the various NDMS teams is great. In order to allow team members the opportunity to receive training, NDMS created the Response Team Training Program. This program is provided to individuals that work in the field of disaster response management and includes information about NDMS functions, responsibilities, and proven medical techniques. We have training on a couple of levels, system-wide NDMS itself sponsors an online internet-based training program that has core curriculum that's everything from what does DMAT stand for up to advanced medical procedures that individuals are familiar with the equipment and the procedures that we expect them to be able to perform in the field. So everyone is required to take at least the core modules and then there's additional modules as well. And then each team itself has its own local training program that consists of classroom sessions, it might be medical, it might be how to pack the right bag for the weather, environmental conditions, and then we have field training exercises. In general, every team has at least one exercise per year where they go somewhere, set up their tents, and actually spend the night and work in that environment. Our goal is to provide absolutely the best quality medical care we can despite the adverse rostear environment we might find ourselves in. And so a lot of the training has to do with the environment and the setting and not so much the medicine and the clinical. Most of our people practice medicine day in and day out. So what we try and emphasize is what's going to be different between that and what they're going to find at the disaster. Teams in general will not deploy an individual until they've been through the training. They've spent at least one or two nights in a field rostear environment so that we know how they perform in that environment. So we don't credential them per se, but we consider them deployable at that level. The same as the teams themselves. We have teams that we consider operational, deployable, and teams that are developmental and not deployable. We're in a position now where, although we're going through a lot of change in migrating from health and human services to FEMA and Homeland Security, we have a lot of opportunities that we've not had in the past. We're rolling out new programs. We're trying to do a lot of work with the teams. It's a real exciting time to be within DMS right now. Hopefully this isn't a system that won't be needed, but we know Mother Nature is always going to raise her head and invite us. And so for no other reason than because of hurricanes and earthquakes, we need such a system and now is a real good time for us to be working on that system and broadening it. Just as recently as two years ago, we had about 8,000 individuals in our system. We're now over 9,000. So we're not only changing departments and changing a number of functions and aspects of our program, but we're growing as well. The NDMS not only enhances the nationwide medical response capability, it also improves the ability of states and localities to respond to disasters. When we come back, we'll take a closer look at the NDMS Veterinary Medical Assistance Teams. Stay with us. Involving the general public in the response to any emergency will pay valuable dividends. The Citizen Corps Councils bring together leaders from the community to coordinate the Citizen Corps effort. On the next live response, we'll explain how a Citizen Corps Council can enhance and manage a community's volunteer resources. Live response airs Wednesday, July 20 at 2 p.m. Eastern. For more information on viewing, make sure to register online at terrorism.spcollege.edu. Following major disasters or terrorist events, the National Disaster Medical System will direct teams of veterinarians, animal health technicians, and various scientific and support personnel. Lee Moody continues her look at the NDMS and focuses on the Veterinary Medical Assistance Teams and shows how they can contribute during a response. In addition to the DMATS and DMORTS, the National Disaster Medical System includes the Veterinary Medical Assistance Teams. DMATS are the only response teams recognized in the National Response Plan that provide veterinary medical treatment. We were approached in the mid-90s by the American Veterinary Medical Association in forming these types of teams because of lessons learned from other disasters, particularly Hurricane Andrew back in 90, where there were some animal issues. And other disasters did have some animal issues where state and local support was required. And they came up forward and actually formed, and we still have an existence for veterinary medical assistance teams. The team is made up of veterinarians, veterinary technicians, some supportive, some logistic people that handle the logistic or the administrative parts. And there's about somewhere between 50 and 75 on each individual team. Our basic team out the door, if there's a call, are two-phase, it's either a 22-person team, which is a full complement VMAT team capable of setting up a field hospital, out, be self-sufficient for the first three days, not rely on any local resources at all, and hopefully out the door in probably six to eight hours from the time they get deployed. There's also a small serve unit, which is five individuals, two veterinarians, two technicians and a team leader, used for support of service dogs, i.e. bomb dogs, ATF, secret service, search and rescue, USAR teams, any of the medical care to those working dogs. It's veterinary support, and veterinary support is broad. It's not quite the same as an DMAT team because we end up becoming involved with public health issues, whether it be zoonotic diseases, whether it be a bioterrorist incident, whereby there's one of the anthrax or diseases that are really animal diseases that need to be looked at in the local population as well. But you bring veterinary hospital support to that region to treat the animals that have been directly impacted by the disaster or extending out to the animal reservoirs in the wildlife or the local population that may play a role in disease spread. Avian influenza. We were deployed to the avian influenza outbreak in Virginia several years ago. We all know that that potentially there may be another flu pandemic in this country that will become a major issue, and the way that's controlled is through the control of it in the avian population. Foot and mouth disease ever gets in this country. That's going to be a real true disaster in a very big way, both economically as well as ethically, and all the issues associated with the destruction of large numbers of domestic animals. VMATs also help with homeless and wild animals during disasters. Obviously, this requires specialized training and experience. In Hurricane Charlie in Florida, one of the things they did was to set up a working hospital to be able to treat some of the animals impacted immediately in the location by that. Red Cross shelters nationally are not pet friendly. Theoretically, you're not supposed to bring pets to those shelters. Local states and communities may alter that and put a animal shelter right next to a human shelter, which is a good plan because many people won't evacuate with an impending disaster if you have not provided a way to take care of their animals. So then if that were the case, then you'd need to set up a unit there to be able to meet the medical needs of those housed animals in that circumstance. Like the DMATs, VMATs are designed to function independently for 72 hours. They also deploy with all the necessary equipment and pharmaceuticals to treat a wide variety of animals. The four teams operate under the incident command system and are located in New England, Maryland, North Carolina and the Great Lakes States. The four teams that we have have tended to specialize slightly in one direction. For example, the North Carolina team has a strong contingent of equine practitioners associated with it. VMAT 1, which I'm with, based out of New England, actually has a strong wildlife and exotic contingent. Our training every year has involved the setting up a field hospital and working with an exotic animal place here in Florida, and we've castrated tigers and spade mountain lions and done surgeries just to show that our, in fact, field hospital operation really can work. That's the real test. You set it up in a training and do some work like that and then you know when you're needed for some issue that you can, in fact, handle it. We do at least one annual field training and an annual field training really is designed to totally bring your cash, set up and operate all of your personnel and your hospital situation and then take it all down and repack it and put it back in the storage. So we try to do one of those every year. In addition, there's all kinds of online training available to us through the NDMS program. In addition, individuals in their specialties will obviously seek out disaster-educated type training in their own specialties wherever they happen to be. So we expect the veterinarian or the technician that comes on board from a particular area to be well-versed in that. We don't try to teach them the aspects of their chosen profession or their specialty, but what we try to do is mold them into safe disaster responders that can be utilized in a austere environment. During an emergency response, VMATs will be directed by the NDMS and will work under the guidance of local authorities to provide veterinary assistance and services. Along with the capability of setting up a full-field hospital, VMATs can provide medical care for pets, search and rescue dogs, livestock, wildlife and even zoo animals if the need arises. They may also be activated to assist with food safety, terrorist events and animal decontamination. There's two different kinds of decon. The obvious thing that we did at the World Trade Center was more of washing debris off and bathing and removing things that way as opposed to a strict, really hazardous materials incident where you've got an infectious agent with a full set up of hot zone, warm zone and cold zone, things like this. I think the biggest need that we have is to be prepared to decontaminate service dogs, bomb sniffing police dogs, mounted police are on horseback. Those animals are going to be exposed and they are very, all animals are valuable obviously to the individual who owns the animal but some of those working animals play a very key role in the response and recovery process that goes on. So those will probably be the ones we will address first because of that's where our design phase is going but obviously the principles and what we learn and the systems we develop will extend beyond that to be able to decontaminate any animals that might need it as a result of the incident that has occurred. Well the need is obvious. It's there in this worry that the world change after 9-11 we have to look at things in a different way and I think we need to get bigger in our scope. I think four teams trying to cover the country became very obvious last summer in Florida where team two and team three were both deployed to the region. That only leaves us two teams and what if there were a second incident? In this ever-changing world of terrorism preparedness specialized units like the veterinary medical assistance teams will play a significant role. Once organized and trained VMATs and other elements of the NDMS can be available to respond to state and local mass casualty incidents. Any state that is interested in establishing a relationship with the veterinary medical assistance teams can contact the National Disaster Medical System or the American Veterinary Medical Association. And now let's take a look at our responder news. In his first state of the union address following the terrorist attacks of September 11 President Bush called for increased volunteerism and community involvement. Well the USA Freedom Corps is a five-part program designed to foster a culture of service and responsibility. The Citizen Corps programs are part of this initiative and for the last few months COMnet has been covering Citizen Corps' different elements. This month we take a look at the volunteers in police service. VIP program itself as it's focused on law enforcement is to really identify ways that citizens can help their local law enforcement agency provide additional services, augment the services that are provided really looking at various talents and abilities of citizens within that community because they're asking how they can help and there's a variety of ways they can. More than 77,000 citizens are currently involved with VIPs volunteering at their local sheriff's offices, police departments and campus police offices. VIPs uses a three-part DVD series to increase participation and shed light on its focus and goals. There's three different audiences for the videos. One is for the community itself so the community can get a better understanding of the Volunteer and Police Service program so that we can look at getting more citizens beyond that 77,000 number we have today to participate. Strength is certainly in numbers. The more we get, the greater this opportunity and this program is going to become. The second piece is to explain to law enforcement officers themselves of that partnership and that relationship to look exactly at the issues of don't fear the volunteers, participate with the volunteers, let them help you do your job. There's more that you can do with your position if you have a volunteer supporting you. And the third piece is looking at the chief executive level, trying to communicate to chiefs and sheriffs across this nation how the Volunteer and Police Service program can be an asset to their agency. The Volunteer program has made an incredible difference in the relationship between the community and the police. If I would have solved 100 cases last year, now I can solve 200 with what's been created by volunteers. I really do wish I would have had some sort of program like this long ago. It's assisted us greatly. It's got us with more time back on the street. Volunteers aren't doing this job for the chief. They're doing it for the guys in the blue uniforms that sit behind the wheel of a patrol car. Whenever we can relieve some pressure off the patrol force, it's an added bonus to the department. It's important to have volunteers be able to take up some of those duties that police officers don't have time to perform. And in turn, that frees up police officers to be more involved in the patrol and neighborhoods and prevent crime. The videos also explain the tremendous benefits communities receive when law enforcement agencies and the communities they serve work hand in hand. Whether you're a volunteer or a law enforcement agency, chief or sheriff, make sure to, if you're a citizen, contact that law enforcement agency. Have them start a VIP program if they don't have one. If they have one, tell them you want to join, be a member of the local initiative. If you're a chief or sheriff and would like to start the initiative, contact the International Association of Chiefs of Police and say, hey, we want the training. We'd like to get started. We see great value in having citizens participate with police. The National Disaster Medical System recently conducted a two-day, two-city, full-scale exercise. Representatives from 27 different agencies participated, including Hazmat teams and AmeriCorps volunteers. The event was dubbed Operation Bitter Almond after the smell of cyanide. It took place in Spartanburg and Greenville, South Carolina after nine months of planning. More than half a dozen hospitals, as well as disaster medical assistance teams. The United States Army Reserve and veterinary medical assistance teams were also involved. I think the most significant thing of this exercise is just understanding and working with the various agencies and learning the capabilities. The thing that happened in Graniteville, I don't think folks were aware that we have such a qualified V-MAT team that could have maybe saved some pets and other animals. But the most important thing is is that the citizens of the United States are protected. Day one began with mock terrorists releasing a gaseous form of cyanide in the North Spartanburg Park. A second charge was released in a nearby maintenance building. Similar attacks were performed on day two in Greenville. Among the many skills tested was the participant's ability to decontaminate animals, extract and triage ambulatory and non-ambulatory victims at the incident site, and then transport them to the proper medical facilities. The National Center for Environmental Health is reducing some of the guest work public health directors encounter when dealing with disasters. The Public Health Emergency Response Guide for state, local and tribal public health directors is an all hazards reference intended to provide guidance to health professionals during the acute phase of an emergency or disaster. The reference tool complies with the doctrines, terminology and organizational processes of the National Response Plan and the National Incident Management System. It's especially useful because it contains specific guidance for events like acts of terrorism, floods or earthquakes. From the activation of a jurisdiction's public health system to its overall response during the acute phase, the guide provides vital information to those who need it most. A pocket sized field version of this guide is also available. California is leading the way when it comes to port security. Oakland spent nearly $4 million in more than a year to become the first port in the nation to have every terminal guarded by a radiation portal monitor. The dual ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach also joined this elite club in May. The U.S. Bureau of Customs considers these portals developed by the Pacific Northwest Labs to be one of their most prized achievements in the war against terrorism. Each unit costs approximately $150,000 and works much like metal detectors you might see at an airport. They're sensitive enough to pick up radiation emitted from the potassium in bananas. The system is designed with three portals at each terminal. International cargo trucks are scanned as they pass through one of the two initial with-like structures at a non-stop pace. The third portal is used to confirm initial positive scans. Customs agents perform an additional inspection with a handheld device to find out what kind of radiation is being emitted. If the type of radiation matches what the container is supposed to be carrying, the truck will be allowed to proceed. Personal protection equipment will be much more task specific and affordable once the National Fire Protection Agency, or NFPA, passes proposed code changes. The newest draft of NFPA 1994, the standard on protective ensembles for chemical and biological terrorism incidents, matches PPE more closely with tasks and threat levels. The code also restructures testing so that it matches the guidelines for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear respirators set by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. Now, under the new standard, Class 1 would be eliminated. Classes 2 and 3 would instead be joined by the new Class 4 PPE, which is worn along with air purifying respirators and is designed to protect against airborne particulates like anthrax spores. Pittsburgh area first responders held a full-scale mock disaster exercise of the Pittsburgh Pirates PNC Ballpark. More than 5,000 people participated in the event designed to test detailed response procedures and focus on response actions. Today's exercise had a suicide bomber go off in the stadium seating area. Then we had a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device drive in and explode, so we had a chemical device go off. We had a suicide bomber go off and a collapse situation. So we had urban search and rescue here as well as a civil support team, state assets from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania These events triggered a mass evacuation as the agencies involved began to take action. We have participation from all levels of government at the exercise today from the city of Pittsburgh, where we had Fire Police EMS up until the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania where they had their emergency management people on scene all the way to federal government where we had postal inspectors and the federal pre-investigation also responding to the exercise. While it's still too early for a final assessment, just getting all the different organizations together with their ideas and become more aware of the resources available to them made the event successful. Decision making, integration and interagency cooperation were evaluated. Every community should be looking at doing something like this. If they have large community buildings and stadiums where people would be gathering for large amounts of time. We at the Office for Domestic Preparance are welcome to come in and help out if we can. We just need to be asked. Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee is one of nine national laboratories and is the Department of Energy's largest science and energy laboratory. John Eastman traveled to the lab to talk to the developers of a new advanced communication system called the Universal Communication and Investigation Concept better known as the UCIC. UCIC is Universal Communication and Investigation Concept and what it is is a local case management system that uses the internet to provide a way for law enforcement to enter information and then to retrieve that information. UCIC is a program where we're trying to take some very advanced technology from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. One to gather data from a number of local police departments. Another to look at this data and look for patterns, look for indicators of crime across the state. The communications part of UCIC and the safety issues pertaining to officers on the streets today and our citizens. With this system, the information sharing is going to be faster and more productive. It has to be simple and easy and what is so good about UCIC it is simple and easy to use. It's information that is either A, specifically inputted to send out or B, information that's already there that you're pulling out. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory is the development of an advanced communication system. This new system is designed to allow local law enforcement officers to more effectively battle local crime while at the same time adding to Homeland Security efforts. Criminal or suspicious activity on a local level can be the first indicator of potential terror attacks. Sharing this information with other agencies has been difficult for local agencies to do on a timely and cost effective basis. The Universal Communication Investigation Concept or UCIC is being designed to change all of that. With a very small investment, UCIC uses technology components that were originally designed for NASA and other federal agencies. UCIC will benefit local law enforcement agencies particularly those with smaller budgets or limited IT expertise. There are a lot of systems out there that often don't work very well together why is that going to be different in the case of UCIC? How will these systems work together? UCIC is going to be built on the XJDM, which is the XML data model that the Department of Homeland Security has just agreed to adopt. It was originally developed by the Department of Justice. It will all be based on that which means you'll have a common foundation. What we're hoping is that this will be the basis, really the building block for systems of the future. With UCIC, we can build all sorts of additional capabilities under this foundation. We've got two projects that we've developed at the laboratory over a number of years. One called Mercury, another one called Viper. Mercury gathers data from a variety of sources, puts it into one common format. Viper looks at patterns of data. It looks for trends, for indicators of where things are connected. So we're leveraging these two major technology areas and using this law enforcement. So there's no payment for this large, enormous investment made. The UCIC just takes the advantage of that and so that makes it a very affordable system. What are some of the advantages of using UCIC? UCIC is a distributed system and one of the things that we found in talking with different law enforcement officials and agencies is that they really are strapped financially and they just don't have the IT resources that they would need to build this type of system and the UCIC National Laboratory is situated in Rhone County, Tennessee which is also the site of the first major test of the universal communication investigation concept. Rhone County is typical of many regions in the United States comprised of both large and small law enforcement agencies. Smaller police agencies find it difficult to share information across municipal boundaries. Therefore, officials in Tennessee are eager to test the effectiveness of UCIC. This system will turn boxes of paper into a searchable database. The success of the program may prove to be a major step forward in crime prevention in Tennessee. With UCIC in place, law enforcement will have a better handle on what's going on in the neighboring town, county and states. The city of Hairman is a populated area of about 7,000 people. It's a rural area. It's one of four cities in the town, and we have about a 20-man police department that actually works the streets. Tom, what are the challenges for local and rural law enforcement agencies to change to the UCIC system? The main challenge is right now most local law enforcement use paper systems. You go into a local police department, you'll see boxes of paper that they're used to sift through. One of the challenges is getting the paper onto a computer. The next is to be able to build a system that is used effectively. They come into the squad room. They would be able to go to that system and access it to see what sort of crimes have transpired in, say, the last 24 hours or 48 hours. And they would immediately know what had happened in the surrounding area. And that's a big problem with local law enforcement because there just is not the communication that there should be between these forces. Our system-based records keeping here is on paper-based systems and information sharing. We're communicating by direct contact face-to-face with other investigators to share information. And that's the only means of communication we have. With this system they can select the geographic area that they want to see information regarding. And we actually had a case in Tennessee where there was a group breaking in through the ceilings of drug stores broke into one jurisdiction on a Wednesday night. On a Thursday night they broke into a neighboring town. The neighboring town knew nothing about that activity. You'll be able to just click on and you'll say for instance you'll go to Kingston City and find out what type of investigations were conducted. If they come in and they look at that then immediately the chief perhaps tells guys we're going to patrol the drug stores a little more closely tonight. Maybe they set up an operation where they're surveilling the drug store and they catch those guys that very next night. The universal communication is important up to the minute information in support of Homeland Security operations. Local law enforcement agents are the first line of defense in the war on terrorism. They can provide the crucial missing pieces of the terror puzzle. The compilation and effective administration of detailed rural information will be a key element of any comprehensive Homeland Security system. The UCIC will supply federal agencies with law enforcement information but currently available on any state or national system. Homeland Security starts in our rural areas the information that we have is very valuable to the federal authorities. The best defense against terrorism is that guy in the car. You can do all this other things but he's your best line of defense so your key component which they found out from this partnership is to give them the information in a usable manner that they can do something with it. How will local law enforcement information, criminal activity, suspicious activity actually make its way to federal agencies such as Homeland Security? Well through the use of this system the information will be collected locally at thousands of sites and that information can then be aggregated through the IT tools that we've developed at Oak Ridge National Lab to make that available to Homeland Security and they will just access it through the systems that they have there. This will be a case where this information typically goes into a local police department and doesn't get shared. You know the idea is with a UCIC type system is to say can there be a tip that somebody's looking at a dam over here or somebody's looking at a bridge over here maybe in two different areas we can start to relate this start to see there's a pattern of activity here that's suspicious. By getting that information into an electronic form then there will be certain patterns that can be discerned that Homeland Security should be able to get that information and maybe see things that should be alarming to them. Local officers will be able to restrict the scope of an information search based on specific cases as well as geographic boundaries. Chat rooms will allow for information sharing in an informal setting. The intent is to make UCIC a simple yet comprehensive tool for local, state and federal agencies. Tom, when do you anticipate UCIC to become available to local officers? Right now we're in a process where we're looking at some preliminary data we're doing some preliminary work to get the mercury and viper systems to come together. We're waiting for funding to come from the government following that it'll probably be a matter of probably six to nine months before we'll have an operational capability and then from that we'll have several increments where we'll say let's talk with the users, make the system better and improve that over time. What kind of training if any do you think your department will need to use UCIC? I think they'll need very limited training if they can operate the internet browser. They'll be able to use the system pretty easy I think probably just a four hour basic course. We've got a lot of experience in working with people that aren't scientists or aren't computer specialists and so we're going to take that capability and take that the work we've done in making systems easy to use and friendly to use and those will be applied to this UCIC system. They will use browsers that are freely available that they're probably already familiar with Internet Explorer, Netscape and they will access it it'll have pull down menus, pull down pick lists so that their standardization should be really easy for them to learn to use a system like this. I feel like the UCIC system will let us use the internet system right now on a daily basis and bring it to the rural areas of law enforcement which we've never had before. One interesting feature is the chat room and that's particularly of interest to first responders because through the experiences of the Iraq war we've learned that these chat rooms are very good way for these guys to share information. I think the other is that while this is accomplishing this Homeland Security goal it's serving every day to address crime and to fight crime at the local level. So it really addresses two fronts here and I think both are very important. What UCIC really is is integrating information and intelligence that law enforcement really needs. It is a weakest link. We need to fix it and this will fix it. Oak Ridge National Laboratory's development of UCIC has the attention of law enforcement on a local, state and national level. The new system has the potential to allow law enforcement officers at all levels to share critical information quickly, affordably and without rigorous training. Alright, let's take a closer look at our ComNet calendar of events. On June 25th through 30th the National Emergency Number Association will hold its annual conference and trade show in Long Beach, California at the Long Beach Convention Center. Also on June 25th through the 29th the National Sheriffs Association will hold its annual conference and exhibition in Louisville, Kentucky at the Kentucky International Convention Center. The National Environmental Health Association is sponsoring the Terrorism and All Hazards Preparedness Conference and Exhibition on June 26th through 29th at the Rhode Island Convention Center in Providence, Rhode Island. Then on June 27th through the 29th the 4th Annual Government Symposium on Information Sharing and Homeland Security will be held at the Hyatt Regency in New Orleans, Louisiana. On July 14th the Symposium on Risk Management and Cyber Informatics will be held at the Rosen Center Hotel in Orlando, Florida. On July 12th through the 14th the 3rd Toxic Industrial Chemical Symposium will be in Richmond, Virginia at the Greater Richmond Convention Center. The International Association of Fire Chiefs is sponsoring the Fire Rescue International 2005 Conference on August 11th through the 13th at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado. On August 18th the National Conference for the Protection of American Communities will be held at the Sheraton Gunter Hotel in San Antonio, Texas. And on August 18th through the 21st the Region 7 Local Emergency Planning Committee and the Tribal Emergency Response Commission will hold their annual conference at the Clarion Sports Complex Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri. There is a website that is becoming the first stop for responders looking for equipment related information. It's called the Responder Knowledge Base and it includes the Interagency Board's Standardized Equipment List as well as the Office for Domestic Preparedness Authorized Equipment List. Mark Everson explores the RKB and how responders can use it as a valuable resource. The Responder Knowledge Base was created to provide emergency responders, purchasers and planners with a trusted integrated online source of information on products, standards, certifications, grants and equipment related information. The Responder Knowledge Base started out as part of a project called Project Responder. It was sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security through the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, which is located out in Oklahoma City. They did Project Responder because they wanted to know how emergency responders were being equipped and what the difference was between what they have today and what they need. They didn't know what we should be wearing to the incident tomorrow. They're flooding us $4 billion worth of grant money and we don't know what to buy. If you want to do something for us, put a trusted site on the web where we can find out what equipment's out there, has it been tested, what standard has it been tested to, hence we got a new mission to be the trusted integrated online site for equipment information and that was how the Responder Knowledge Base was born. One area that the SEL does have now that's grown in the last couple of years, the input and data from the SEL and from the subject matter expertise of the members of the IAB has helped to put a tremendous amount of information into an available website now that was developed through funding through the Office of Domestic Preparedness. When questions about equipment arise, the Responders can go to the RKB to search for answers. The RKB is the first source to help Responders begin answering questions such as, what equipment is out there? Has it been certified? To what standard? What training is needed to use it? How do I pay for it? And who can I talk to that has used it? All you have to do is go to www.rkb.mipt.org Not only does that site allow you access to the standardized equipment list in great detail with linkages, knowledge links. You can access the standards that are used for pieces of equipment for testing. What are the knowledge areas covered by the RKB? In order to do what we need to do for the Responders, first and most obvious, products. We have, right now, we're just passing 3,500 different products. For those products, we also keep track of the applicable standards and have probably 500 different standards in there. A key area is certifications. One of the things that's very important for an emergency responder is to know whether the piece of equipment we're talking about is certified or not. We won't tell them anything is certified unless we actually have a certification record for it. And for that purpose, we team with places like the Safety Equipment Institute, NIOSH, underwriter labs, they actually send us a certification record. We link the product to the certification record to the standard so that someone looking at the product will see exactly how it's certified and can look at the record and then bounce right over and actually read the standard or find the standard that it's certified to. That's the whole concept of trying to knit this stuff together. We also have multiple knowledge areas in grant programs like the Family Transfer Program, the Homeland Defense Equipment Reuse Program, and others. Every time I look at that list it gets a little longer but the key for the responder is standards, products, certifications. That information from the SEL and the IAB goes into that website, the RKB, where they can get specific information about particular models, manufacturing products. There are a tremendous amount of links on the RKB that they can then take a particular model whether it's an SCBA, a self-contained breathing apparatus, or a chemical protective garment. It'll show all the links to standards, what those garments should be tested against, if there are test results from credited labs, those results will be linked there. There'll be recommendations from members of the IAB, actual users of that equipment who have spent a lot of time trying to give valuable information about initial costs of those pieces of equipment and then long-term maintenance costs. A lot of the problems in the last few years with grant money, the grant money is there at the start-up so agencies can go out and purchase the equipment. But if they don't have the money downstream in the next fiscal year, or two or three after that to maintain the equipment on the shelf, so there's a lot of valuable information in there at the start, with a starting point at the SEL, the standard equipment list, and then much more in-depth information on the website, the RKB. In addition to the interagency board standardized equipment list, the RKB also contains equipment information from the authorized equipment list approved by the Department of Homeland Security, Office for Domestic Preparedness. Really quick, what do the acronyms actually stand for? The AEL is the authorized equipment list. Think of that as what you're authorized to buy. Right. The SEL is the standardized equipment list. Think of that as the standard recommendation from the IAB. What is the difference between the SEL and the AEL? The SEL and the AEL there are the two major indices that we use in terms of looking at products. What happened was some of the key players in the IAB, some of the players got together and said, you know, where is the list of things that we need to respond to a weapons of mass destruction incident? So the original SEL came out and was a Word document, basically, and has gained momentum and breadth and depth through the continued meeting and refinements that go on in the IAB process. Well, at the same time, ODP, the Office for Domestic Preparedness, was putting together their grant programs. They asked the same question. What equipment should we fund? So initially, they took the SEL, they pulled out a subset of the SEL and said, okay, we'll fund those things. The SEL has now 11 sections and the AEL has 21. The basic difference is the SEL is the recommendation from the Interagency Board about what you need to respond. The AEL is, what can you buy with the grant money? And in some cases, they're different, but there's an awful lot of commonality there. What we've done on the RKB for the first time is host both of those lists interactively and link them together. So if you look at an item on the standardized equipment list, if there's a corresponding item on the AEL, again, we'll shorten your response time. It'll be right there. Through the RKB, registered professional responders can contact other response personnel or other products or volunteer to share their own experiences. So how do users get additional information? There are a couple of ways. One is on every page of the site there's a feedback button and we use that for a couple of reasons. One is the professional emergency responders out there often know better than we do what we need or what we're missing or sometimes we'll find an error. So by just hitting the feedback button they can format an instant message and the site is set up so that it not only knows made the comment, but what page they were on when they made it. You can access subject matter experts and other people that have actually used the pieces of equipment you're looking at. And in many instances there's actually examples of the equipment that meets the standard right there available linking you right to the manufacturer's website. The RKB works in conjunction with a network of subject matter experts or SMEs. The Ask an Expert area is one way RKB users can get expert advice on equipment questions. What is SME? SME is our mascot. We named him but we do a great deal of work with subject matter experts, SMEs. And so we call them SMEs for short. And we wanted a little mascot. We wanted something you know many websites have a little person or icon that appears in those places to offer you help. So we invented SME and SME has if you go to the site you'll see that he has handcuffs and a fire cap and boots and little goggles and what happens is SME will pop up to tell you for example whether there's a user opinion giver available on your product or in some cases SME will show up to tell you that there's a mission critical hint related to the item that you're looking at. So SME is a multiple threat character who aids people throughout the site. The other thing is a little bit more advanced and that's called ask an expert. And we have that facility because there are tons of questions out there that nobody knows who to ask. So for us, we get questions like how do I set the upper and lower limits on my paging radiation detector. What we have is a great relationship with the IAB and with DHS so that we can refer those kinds of questions and get responses from people who know what they're doing. So that basically is a sort of send me a note and then we get back to them with a specific, we answer those individually. Check that cue every morning. How long does it usually take for someone to get a response? It depends on what they ask me an easy or a hard question. The easy questions we answer within a day or two and the hard one sometimes will take a week or two depending on how badly we have to work to track down the answer. The guy who really knows the answer. If you'd like more information on the RKB or any of the agencies featured in this program, visit our website or write to us at COMnet. That's P.O. Box 13489 St. Petersburg, Florida 33733 and while you're on the NTPI website be sure and sign up and take the online test for CEUs. Also you can help ensure that we're meeting your learning needs by completing the evaluation form. Just a reminder that our next COMnet will air on Wednesday August the 24th at 2 p.m. Eastern time and be sure to join us for live response on July the 20th at 2 p.m. Eastern time where we will discuss the Citizen Corps Councils. Thanks a lot for viewing and we'll see you next time on COMnet.