Reporting Developments of Interest to Stakeholders in
Disaster Management Interoperability Services

CONTENTS:

  1. Update on DMIS
  2. Disaster Management Interoperability Services (DMIS) Outreach
  3. COG Manager's Corner
  4. DisasterHelp.gov Enhancements
  5. Upcoming Events
  6. Upcoming EIIP Virtual Forum
  7. About the Disaster Management E-gov Initiative
  8. About the Interoperations Newsletter

“Phoenix” Update

The DMIS Test, Analysis and Responder Liaison teams continue testing of the next release of DMI-Services, code named “Phoenix,” while creating test scripts for an Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E). After completion of internal testing, the OT&E test will be performed by both internal and external participants distributed throughout the country within the next few weeks. Any interested DMI-Services operator with 2-3 hours of time to give to the tests should contact David Gilliam as soon as possible.

Additionally, the DMIS staff is presently developing a detailed distribution plan for the new release and will inform you of how that process will work when all the details are worked out. Team members anticipate that the Phoenix release will be fully distributed and operational by late spring 2005.

U.S. Navy Begins Planning for DMIS Rollout

The U.S. Department of Defense Service Branches – Army, Navy, and Air Force – are undertaking joint efforts to increase protection of personnel and critical infrastructure at installations, from all-hazards threats, within the United States. Part of that effort includes the use of information technologies to coordinate incident response among military and civil organizations at all levels of command and government. The U.S. Navy’s Naval Facilities Engineering Command informed the Disaster Management Program Office that DMIS was selected as an information technology to be deployed to installations within the United States. The initial DMIS deployment is to be in the Naval Mid-Atlantic Region. An initial planning meeting between DMIS and Mid-Atlantic Region Coordinators was held on March 3, 2005, at Naval Station Norfolk.

BioNet and DMIS

BioNet is a cooperative program between the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), specifically the Science and Technology Directorate, and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). The BioNet program is a chemical and biological alert and warning system that allows localities to share information and improve the consequence management of a biological attack on their population and critical infrastructure by integrating and enhancing currently disparate military and civilian detection and characterization capabilities.

Staff attended the kickoff meeting for coordination and planning of the DM role in BioNet. BioNet is looking to incorporate the DMIS backbone in preparation for two upcoming BioNet drills in the San Diego area. BioNet has chosen San Diego as the pilot city for developing and demonstrating enhanced consequence management capabilities. Lessons learned from San Diego will be used to create templates and tools for application to other national programs, such as BioWatch and Guardian.

To learn more about BioNet, see http://bionet.calit2.net/project.php .

IAB Requests DMIS Presentation/Update

Steve Beaumont, DMIS Western Region Responder Liaison, met with the InterAgency Board for Equipment Standardization and Interoperability (IAB) in San Francisco on March 1-3. Steve participated as a subject matter expert on the “Interoperable Communications and Information Systems (ICIS)” sub-group and met with IAB leadership. As result, the IAB requested a formal DMIS update / presentation at their next meeting in June.

Steve also discussed DMIS with representatives of other organizations present for the meeting; i.e., the US Marshals Service, the DoD Installation Protection Program, and the California Office of Emergency Services.

Sanctioned by the Attorney General of the United States, the IAB was founded by the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice in 1998. The IAB is designed to establish and coordinate local, state, and federal standardization, interoperability, and responder safety to prepare for, respond to, mitigate, and recover from any incident by identifying requirements for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear or Explosives (CBRNE) incident response equipment. See http://www.iab.gov/ .

Other DMIS Outreach Activities

• DM attended the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) Mid-Year Conference in Washington DC, and provided information on EDXL and the DM Program.
• DM conducted data interoperability demonstration using EDXL to route messages to multiple vendors at the Congressional Internet Caucus Technology Fair.
• Staff worked with OnStar and GLOBAL Justice leaders on Vehicular Emergency Data Set (VEDS), crash data standard, GJXDM compliance and using EDXL message distribution element to CAD systems.
• DM conducted weekly Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstration (CWID) coordination teleconferences with partnering CWID Trials.
• DM met with Director of Operations for the Virginia Department of Emergency Management to discuss support for a National Capitol Region (NCR) EDXL demonstration.
• Staff conducted a formal presentation at the Virginia Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials / National Emergency Number Association (APCO / NENA) Conference on data interoperability, the efforts of the Disaster Management Program and EDXL.
• DM hosted a two-day meeting with technical stakeholders addressing data messaging standards.
• Staff met with the Department of Justice to demonstrate DMIS and to discuss how to integrate the tool within the DoJ Emergency Operations Center.
• DM met with the Executive Director of the National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO) to discuss EDXL.

3. COG Manager's Corner

New registrations for DMIS Collaborative Operating Groups (COGs) continue to come in at a steady pace of three per day. We recently discovered and corrected an intermittent malfunction in the registration email system that had caused over 100 registrations to be received and entered into our registration database over time without notification. We queried all of the outstanding registrations from the database and have almost completed processing them through the system. We offer our humble apologies to those of you that were affected. Total registered DMIS COGs throughout the 50 states, Puerto Rico and American Samoa will surpass 1,300 by month’s end.

Last month, the Responder Liaison Team provided DMIS Operator Training to 21 students from a number of responder disciplines at the Connecticut National Guard Armory Learning Center. A number of these individuals will be using DMIS in TOPOFF III this April.

The RL Team stands ready to answer any of your questions concerning the functional use of DMIS. Remember the time to exercise with DMIS and become proficient is before you need it for an actual incident. Our group of professionals has a wealth of experience, knowledge and information that we are eager to share with any of you that wish to contact us. We strongly encourage local and regional collaborative training activities by registered DMIS COGs.

If you wish to check on the status of a DMIS registration request, want information concerning other registered DMIS COGs in your area, or have any questions at all, please feel free to call or email Rick Hauschildt, DMIS COG Manager, at (540) 288-5671.

4. DisasterHelp.gov Enhancements

The DisasterHelp web site is part of the President's Disaster Management E-Gov Initiative and uses information technology to improve the delivery of disaster assistance information and services by creating a single Internet-based portal to serve the public’s requirement for assistance, and the government’s requirement to provide disaster information and services. The public side of the portal is a single location where public and private businesses can easily access disaster information and services provided by government agencies and non-governmental organizations. Check it out and register at https://disasterhelp.gov/portal/jhtml/index.jhtml .

What’s New at DisasterHelp.gov?

The Disaster Management E-Gov Initiative (DM) provided support and / or outreach as follows using DisasterHelp.Gov:

• Office of National Security Coordination (ONSC): Held a conference call with ONSC and CCB representatives to discuss status of new development
• Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS): Page is under development
• Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL): Created a Get Started with Collaboration document for the new Emergency Data Standards community
• Coordinated Assistance Network (CAN): Participated in a webex demo conference call to inform CAN users of DisasterHelp.gov options
• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA): Granted list of users author access to Mitigation Outreach Knowledge Center
• Social Security Administration (SSA): Provided additional Collaboration Center training last month
• American Red Cross (ARC): Presented DHelp demonstration
• Welcome message updates to homepage
• Created numerous DisasterHelp.gov user accounts
• Provided assistance for database password updates

April 20-22, 2005: Fire-Rescue Med 2005. International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC). Las Vegas, Nevada. See http://www.iafc.org/conferences/frm/index.asp .

May 17-19, 2005: Texas Hurricane Conference. Beaumont Texas. For more information, please see http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/dem/conference_info.htm .

May 24-27, 2005: TIEMS (The International Emergency Management Society) 12th Annual Conference. Torhavn, Faroe Islands. See http://www.tiems.org .

June 7-9, 2005: FEMA Emergency Management Higher Education Conference. Emergency Management Institute (EMI). Emmitsburg, Maryland. Wayne Blanchard wayne.blanchard@dhs.gov; http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/edu/educonference05.asp.

June 12-17, 2005: Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM) 29th Annual National Conference. Madison, Wisconsin. For registration and other information, see http://www.floods.org/Conferences,%20Calendar/madison.asp .

July 10-13, 2005: 15th World conference on Disaster Management (WCDM). Toronto, Canada. See http://www.wcdm.org .

July 24-30, 2005: International Conference on Energy, Environment and Disasters (INCEED 2005). Bridging the Gaps for Global Sustainable Development (UNESCO – ISEG – GADR). Charlotte North Carolina. http://www.iseg.giees.uncc.edu/inceed2005/

6. Upcoming EIIP Virtual Forum

Welcome to the EIIP!

The EIIP Virtual Forum provides 'live chat' presentations and interactive Q&A with subject matter experts on timely topics on two Wednesdays each month, 12:00 Noon EST. Please visit the EIIP Virtual Forum homepage http://www.emforum.org or subscribe to the EIIP Mail List via the Homepage to monitor our schedule for upcoming hot topics for the remainder of the year.

Our next Virtual Forum session is Wednesday, March 23, when we will discuss Early Warning Systems – Interdisciplinary Observations and Policies from a Local Government Perspective. Speakers will be from the Public Entity Risk Institute (PERI) and George Washington University (GWU).

No advance registration or user account is required; use the Chat Login link under Quick Picks on the EIIP home page at http://www.emforum.org. NOTE: The Forum is using new chat software. Please check your connection prior to your first meeting with us; you may need to download the latest version of JAVA.

About the EIIP: The EIIP is an educational non-profit association of individuals and organizations seeking to enhance their effectiveness in coping with disasters and emergency situations by exploring the opportunity for sharing information and ideas made possible by electronic technology. The EIIP also shares its vision and educational opportunities through the EIIP Community on the DisasterHelp.gov Web site http://www.disasterhelp.gov .

7. About the Disaster Mangement E-gov Initiative (DisasterHelp.gov and DMIS)

The Disaster Management E-Gov Initiative is part of the President's Management Agenda for making government more focused on people and results. Its goal is to provide an easy-to-use, unified point of access to disaster management knowledge, services and toolsets to achieve an accelerated and improved quality of disaster mitigation and response. There are two major parts of the initiative: Disaster Management Interoperability Services (DMIS) and the DisasterHelp.Gov portal. DMIS is focused on the responder/emergency management profession, while the portal provides information and services to citizens, business, federal, state, and local government and non-profit organizations relating to disaster and emergency response.

8. About the Interoperations Newsletter

The Interoperations Newsletter reports on the developments of interest for the disaster management community. Reader comments, questions, and notifications to cancel this newsletter can be forwarded directly to the Editor, Avagene Moore at (931) 762-4768, or the Responder Liaison, Scott Eyestone, at (540) 288-5622; or provided via the DMI-Services Web site at http://www.cmi-services.org/. Your feedback is welcome and appreciated.