Posts Tagged ‘Emergency Disaster Preparedness’
Information Fusion Research Simulates Disasters to Manage Emergency Response
September 23rd, 2009
Improving how decision-makers respond in the minutes and hours that follow the first reports of a natural disaster like the recent tsunami or a manmade incident, such as a chemical accident or a terrorist attack, is the focus of a research project at the University at Buffalo’s Center for Multisource Information Fusion.
“Responders immediately begin knitting together a picture that makes sense of what is happening based on the flow of reports they receive from the field,” said Peter Scott, Ph.D., associate professor of computer science and engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and principal investigator on the project.
“Our goal is to take the typically chaotic flow of reports of variable quality and heterogeneous origin received from the field in the period immediately after the disaster and transform it into useful information for decision-makers and emergency responders to act upon,” he said.
The system is undergoing beta testing, Scott said, and should be completed and available for use within one year.
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On Disaster Preparedness: Nearly 1.5 million children age 14 and younger affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
September 14th, 2009
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have directly affected over 6.5 million people, who live in or who have fled from, disaster areas designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), including nearly 1.5 million children age 14 and younger.
Many of these families need food, shelter, clothing, and in numerous cases, trauma counseling to begin to heal and put their lives back together. The National Association of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA) has heard from numerous communities and parents who are also in desperate need for child care assistance so that their children are safe while they turn to the task at hand – either cleaning up debris or looking for and getting a job.
As Americans Reflect on 9/11, HHS and CDC Continue to Aggressively Prepare the Nation for Another Terrorist Attack
September 5th, 2009
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and its Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will join the rest of the nation on September 11 to look back in somber reflection at the tragic events of that day. CDC responded to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center that deeply affected all Americans, and when the anthrax attacks began, CDC joined with other federal agencies and state and local health departments to investigate the nation’s first bioterrorism attack using anthrax. CDC continues to aggressively work with its HHS partners - such as NIH, FDA and the Office of Emergency Response (OER) - to prepare the nation for the possibility of another terrorist attack. Read the rest of this entry »