INTERAGENCY COOPERATION CONFERENCE SOFIA,BULGARIA Fall Creek Falls, Tennessee

 Customer (disaster-victim) focused  Build upon and sustain what assets you have  Collaborate with every partner you can find  Continually improve your skills and exercises  Manage Your Disaster Risk  Preparedness is everyone’s responsibility  Define: How can we maintain continuity for our economy and infrastructure after a disaster?

Producing a Common Operating Picture (COP) for Decision-makers

Tennessee uses redundant interoperable communications layers to coordinate local and regional damage assessment for COP: 700 & 800 MHz radio bands. HF High Frequency radio band. Secured internet web-based software WebEOC to link EOC’s. WinLink internet access thru HF band when standard internet access is impossible.

The reliance on normal cell phone traffic has proven to be extremely unreliable under disaster conditions. Responders have moved toward Satellite phones as a result, but soon this traffic will be overcrowded. Fall Creek Falls

MASS -- A new Information system integrating both damage assessment COP and available Equipment and Personnel resources throughout a nation or region has begun its Pilot phase of introduction in the Central U.S. Jurisdictions faced with the catastrophic New Madrid Earthquake Seismic Zone Threat. Fall Creek Falls

 MASS regional partners joining exercises :  25 affected New Madrid Zone States.  100 million population affected.  FEMA and all federal agencies, Dept. of Defense, National Guard Bureau.  Thousands of local government responders.  All state players feeding data and disaster information into the MASS GIS mapping system.  Commanders getting instant COP and ability to pick and choose available response teams from pre-loaded MASS data-base.  Commanders direct response thru shared transportation corridor availability by MASS influenced mapping.

 Emergency Management Assistance Compact :  20 year old State-to-State Mutual Aid System.  All 50 States are signatories to EMAC.  All legal liability and compensation issues are standardized and determined before mission is deployed.  A Governor asks another Governor to voluntarily commit resources to assist in his disaster.  But we found issues that needed to be addressed.

 EMAC utilizes a first-come first-served concept:  It is very difficult for States that need resources to identify where these resources will come from.  The software operating system which matches needed resources to disaster states is bulky and difficult to navigate causing delays and confusion.  There is no visibility of committed resource’s status to the assisting State command and control cell.

 MRP – Mission Ready Packaging:  Position-by-Position Strike Team construction:  Technical expertise and credentialing is quantified to construct the team’s dynamic.  Complete Team Personnel availability, instant transportation-mode access, cutting-edge equipment, total 24-hour sustainability, scalable.  150 disaster emergency function skills are typed, with 500 more to be released next month.

Mission-Ready Packages: Organized using Federal and State personnel and assets in initial phase (Helicopters, fixed wing transport, hazardous-materials response teams, radiological detection and mass logistics). Second phase will organize at local level (mostly Fire, light Search and Rescue, Medical and Police units). Fall Creek Falls

 FNARS National Communications System:  The FNARS (FEMA National Radio System) is a HF (high frequency) radio network which provides essential emergency commo between federal, state and local governments during emergencies and disasters.  FNARS will maintain reliable long and short range radio commo within affected disaster areas without dependence on susceptible terrestrial and satellite telecommunications networks. The system will transmit and receive secure and non-secure voice and data to include , text messages and images.

 The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Charleston (SSCC), Code 50 is tasked to develop, deliver and install FNARS.  First phase of FNARS BETA testing (voice & data) was conducted this week between FEMA Region IV Atlanta and Tennessee State Emergency Operations Center in Nashville, Tennessee.  All system checks were positive.  National testing scheduled thru June, 2014.

 Integration of the Private Sector into sharing data and information within the Common Operating Picture. What are the pitfalls?  Refining information systems for responding to extreme (catastrophic) disaster events.  What is the role of Emergency Management in Disaster Risk Reduction?  Rethinking Recovery and Risk Financing: Major disaster recovery has gotten too expensive for even the richest nations.

“Information production is …a user- driven cycle of shaping and re- shaping a shared interaction and information space” Fall Creek Falls

 Cecil Whaley, Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, 3041 Sidco Dr., Nashville, TN  Telephone –  Cell: