Op911

Celebrates Decade of Training

— CDP Public Affairs

Since its beginning its training programs more than a decade ago, the Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) has played a pivotal role in the nation’s preparedness.

Born from an idea to prepare state and local emergency responders from acts of terrorism involving Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), the CDP has become a premier federal training facility offering a unique hands-on training experience.

The CDP recently celebrated its 10th anniversary, before a capacity crowd that included federal, state, and local dignitaries.

Among those in attendance was FEMA Administrator R. David Paulison. He spoke of the importance of ensuring responders have the right tools for the right job, and how the CDP is providing the experience necessary to equip the nation’s response force.

“After training just over 2,500 responders in its first year, the CDP team now trains an average of more than 60,000 responders each year,” said Paulison. “As of this past May, the CDP has trained [more than] 355,000 responders representing every state in the union, each of our territories and many of our international allies in its first decade of operation. This is truly a record of which to be proud.”

The origins of the CDP can be traced to the 1995 Aum Shinriyko Sarin nerve agent attacks on the Tokyo subway system. As that event unfolded, New York City public safety officials sought ways to prevent such an event in their city. The officials requested that the Department of Defense (DoD) allow civilian responders to train at the U.S. Army’s Chemical School ’s Chemical Defense Training Facility (CDTF) at Ft. McClellan , near Anniston , Alabama . DoD officials granted access to toxic agent training and the first class of civilian emergency responders graduated in late 1995. Civilian responders continued training at the Army facility until 1999, when Ft. McClellan officially closed following identification by the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission. Under the leadership of the Department of Justice (DoJ), the federal government assumed the responsibility of training America ’s civilian responders. (more…)

Do you have a complicated email system with thousands of users?  How will that work when your main site is down due to disaster?

This new software allows you to keep critcal mailboxes synchronized to a large ISP (google.com) that would let you read all your email in a disaster (as long as  you have internet access).  They also have some support for RIM blackberry messaging.   They say it has “one click” failover.  . .which means it’s not transparent to the user.  I’d like to see it transparent, like crystal clear transparent to the end-user as it swaps to failover.

http://www.cemaphore.com

By Rod Deluhery

Yes I admit that I’m a GIS dummy.  But that doesn’t keep my from trying to learn, so today I learned an easy way to GEOCODE addresses into lat/longitudes that can be mapped on a computer.

First, get your raw data of crimes, fires, whatever.  Then go to this website: http://www.batchgeocode.com/

Its a free service that can take your street data and put it into a map.  It uses Yahoo servers to geocode your data.  Keep in mind it’s not perfect, and it doesn’t really warn you if it COULD not find an address.  Thats the big problem with geocoding, but it’s a great tool for making a quick map of addresses. 

You can label the points on the map with as much detail as you want.  And yes it’s free to use and easy to make a google earth map of any data you need.

I copy blocks of text out of a PDF file that had my street data, put into excel and pasted into the website.   Seconds later I had my map. 

You have 47 days left to buy Windows XP! After that it will be harder to get, eventually impossible to get XP on a personal computer! Join the campaign, “Save windows XP” to help extend the life of windows XP!

http://weblog.infoworld.com/save-xp/archives/2008/04/steve_ballmer_c.html

http://weblog.infoworld.com/save-xp/

http://www.nytimes.com/idg/IDG_852573C4006938804825745D0035EE3E.html

Good news if you are in the “Save windows XP!” camp.  

Only 17 days to go (until June 30, official stop date for some hardware to be sold with XP)

Published: June 3, 2008 

Microsoft has further extended the life of Windows XP so that computer makers can include the operating system on low-cost desktop PCs, the company announced at the Computex trade show on Tuesday.

Microsoft has been under pressure from computer makers to provide a version of its OS for an emerging class of very low-cost laptops and desktops. Its new Windows Vista OS is widely seen as too resource-hungry for those machines.

In April Microsoft extended its deadline for selling Windows XP licenses for low-cost laptops like the Asus Eee PC. It had originally planned to stop selling most XP licenses on June 30.

An AWA, or adhoc wireless app, is software (usually) that forms instant adhoc communications with surrounding nodes.  Usually these programs do some type of network discovery, finding nearby units.  Why?  In mobile networks, there is an possibility that no connection to a “server” exists, so that in like peer to peer fashion, every node has to help communicate to other nodes.

Here is an example of an AWA: 

Global Mesh Technologies has developed CAMMS™ (Command Anywhere Mobile Mesh Software) to enable a totally secure, scalable mobile mesh (ad hoc) network and provide the necessary tools for Command Anywhere.

The CAMMS™ mobile mesh software program is a patent pending Windows-based program, which provides the foundation for an ad hoc, self-forming / self-healing wireless mobile mesh network.   It provides interoperability and allows real time communications with any others users in the mesh. 

http://globalmeshtec.com/products_cammsdfk.html

http://globalmeshtec.com/pdfs/GMT_Datasheet_CAMMSdfk.pdf

Federal regulators as early as Wednesday are expected to take a major step toward development of a nationwide emergency alert system that would send text messages to cellphones and other mobile devices wherever a crisis occurs. Lack of a simple way to deliver vital warnings to residents has hindered emergency response in disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, recent college-campus shootings, and a spate of devastating tornadoes in the Southeast in February. The FCC is slated to establish technical standards and other requirements that for the first time would make such communication possible, two FCC officials say. Although wireless carriers would not be required to upgrade their networks to accommodate the alerts, those that agree to participate would have to implement the FCC’s standards. All four national cellphone providers — AT&T, Verizon, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile — said they almost certainly will take part if the FCC adopts an advisory committee’s recommendations on how the system would work. “We look forward to offering mobile emergency alerts to our customers,” says Jim Bugel, assistant vice president of federal affairs for AT&T. The network is expected to be up and running by 2010. Under the planned system, a county, state or federal first responder would send an alert to a still-to-be-determined federal agency that would serve as a clearinghouse. That agency then would relay the alert to participating wireless carriers. The messages would be broadcast on a single pathway to many users in the affected region, like a radio signal, avoiding the congestion that now afflicts such warnings. Few cellphones today can receive such messages, but most will be able to in three to five years, says Verizon Chief Technology Officer Tony Melone.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/telecom/2008-04-08-fcc-emergency_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

If you are public safety and use cellular phones, READ THIS!  Keep in mind it may cost your organization some money to get it activated.  Sometimes it does not!  Also you could get a DHS grant to pay for the fees, if you work it. 

What is WPS? WPS is an Federal program that authorizes cellular communications service providers to prioritize calls over wireless networks. Participation in the WPS program is voluntary. Participating service providers typically deploy WPS in stages until service is available in most coverage areas and functionality has reached full operating capability.

Authorized users dial *272 on a WPS enabled device to receive calling queue priority. WPS calls do not preempt calls in progress, but provide priority status over cellular communications networks.

http://www.fcc.gov/pshs/emergency/wps.html

http://www.op911.net/html/telco_priority_911.rtf

http://www.op911.net/html/WPS_Overview.ppt

http://www.op911.net/html/GETS_Overview.ppt

(more…)

As public safety people, we love backups. We grab the radio and call for backup. We tell our Sergent we need backup, and we usually get it. It’s easy and a way of life. Most every major part is redundant in a large organization. It has to be.

So if we are always redundant, have spare cars, spare fire engines, spare hoses, why do we sometimes not have a spare radio system? The answer is not all that clear. Let me start out with some recent experience at a Police station.

It’s 2:30 pm, and our wireless carrier that supports our dispatch data network seems to be down. This is a major Tier1 telco that runs PCS wireless data across the nation.  We try to keep patient as multiple calls go out.   On the fourth or so call to the helpdesk we finally get someone who knows that indeed, the network is DOWN!  For us this is not a major issue, as this is a new system and we only have five people on it. 

Yet we are somewhat surprised how badly the network problem was handled.   It was four hours before some of the helpdesk at (insert anonymous wireless service here) knew it was a network problem! 

Again we are fortunate as we haven’t completely moved to this service yet, as it was down almost 10 hours!  We continued to use our private 800mhz RDLAP system.   This outage brings to light the need for redundancy.  

to be continued.

Find any security product here at ISCWEST.  Iscwest is a gigantic security show, with thousands of vendors of security products.  Security cameras, systems, alarms, phsycial locks-barriers, security dashboards, security operation centers, anything security. 

This is a great show for the techie cops who want to see the latest in how security is working and what can help your operation.