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Software quickens response: System will cost about $37,000.
Nov 19, 2009 (Columbia Daily Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Emergency response software that was used to coordinate public safety and security among 40 agencies for the 2009 Major League Baseball All-Star Game in St. Louis will soon become an important tool for the Boone County Fire Protection District.
The district's board of directors last night approved the purchase of the E-SPONDER incident management system. The price tag was $37,399.
"We would be the first to do this in this area," Fire Chief Scott Olsen told board members. Olsen said the purchase will continue the fire district's position as a trendsetter for use of technology in emergency management.
E-SPONDER is marketed by an O'Fallon company as "a turnkey incident management solution" for fire departments and other public safety agencies. The software will allow district administrators to send mass notification of natural disasters and other emergency situations to personnel. The system is set up to receive instant feedback from personnel.
Division Chief Gale Blomenkamp said the system can be used to manage emergency or disaster scenes, as well as provide notification about day-to-day events to personnel.
Blomenkamp said the system can simultaneously send text messages to cellular phones and e-mail accounts, numeric messages to pagers and notices to Facebook accounts.
Another aspect of incident management is the E-SPONDER mapping system, which uses Global Positioning System technology to track where personnel have been. That function would be especially useful for large-scale search and rescue work and for managing the aftermath of natural disasters, Blomenkamp said.
The system's usefulness as a day-to-day resource was especially appealing to board member John Gordon, but he cautioned that it might require further tightening of the district's budget.
"This would be a capital item that we had not foreseen," Gordon said.
Blomenkamp said the district's executive staff earlier this year made a list of priority capital improvements. "This was one of those things that was not on that list," he said.
Olsen said the system would be purchased with a 50-50 split of fire district and Missouri Task Force 1 funds. Once the E-SPONDER is purchased, the company will provide two days of training for district personnel to learn the system. Olsen estimated the district could be using the technology within 30 days of the purchase.
Reach Jodie Jackson Jr. at 573-815-1713 or e-mail jjackson@columbiatribune.com.
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