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VDEM creates new common operating pictureVDEM's Virginia Interoperability Picture for Emergency Response, or VIPER, is a tool that not only gives Virginia Emergency Operations Center staff the ability to visually assess statewide emergency management operations in real time, but it also automatically offers users instant access to essential local information through traditional Geographic Information Systems layers. For example, if a locality experiences a rapidly escalating traffic incident, VIPER will provide information about nearby hospitals; in the case of a hazardous materials spill, VIPER will offer data about area schools; during a flood, VIPER will alert users to low-lying areas that could be affected. VIPER monitors environmental sensors and gathers data from VDEM's crisis management system, as well as external systems, such as Computer Aided Dispatch, the National Weather Service and the Integrated Flood Observation and Warning System. VIPER then performs an analysis of all available information and alerts VEOC staff to potential impacts on critical infrastructure. This ability to evaluate how incidents visually relate to each other combined with point-and-click access to essential local data greatly speeds VDEM's coordination of response and recovery efforts at the state and local levels. VIPER has already aided the state's response efforts during both Tropical Storm Hanna and the 2008 presidential election. In the future, VIPER's data will be available to other state and local government partners through data links that can operate with any GIS system. These data links will use widely accepted data standards, such as GeoRSS, .xml, and .kml, in order to promote a multi-platform model of GIS information sharing. VDEM developed this interoperable system so that agencies and localities will be able to share information with the VEOC regardless of the GIS systems they use, maximizing their existing investments and minimizing future costs. VIPER helped DHS, FEMA, the U.S. Secret Service and VDEM to monitor the 56th Presidential Inauguration, and Tampa officials used VIPER to monitor Super Bowl XLIII. In addition, several state agencies have begun to incorporate elements of VIPER into their operations, including the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Mississippi Fusion Center, North Carolina State Police, the South Carolina Emergency Management Division, Texas Border Control, and local government agencies in Beverly Hills, Calif., Clarke County, Nev. and Virginia Beach. |
Virginia Association of Hazardous Materials Response Specialists 7109 Staples Mill Road, Box 704, Richmond, VA 23228 |