Amy Sebring: Welcome to the EIIP Tech Arena! Today we are featuring the Community Alert Network (CAN) warning system, and their experience at the Los Alamos fire last spring. Amy Sebring: For the benefit of any first-timers, if you see a blue web address, you can click on it and the referenced Web page should appear in a browser window. Amy Sebring: After the first one, the browser window may not automatically come to the top, so you may need to bring it forward by clicking on a button at the status bar at the bottom of your screen. Then you will need to bring your chat window back to the top in the same way. Amy Sebring: We will start with a presentation, and then follow with a Q&A session for your questions and comments. Right before we begin the Q&A portion we will review the procedure. Amy Sebring: Please do NOT send direct messages to the speakers or moderator as it makes it difficult for us to follow the discussion. Amy Sebring: Background information for today's session may be found at http://www.emforum.org/varena/001025.htm ... Amy Sebring: Please note than in addition to a link for the CAN home page, there is a link to a .wav file which is the actual warning message used in White Rock. Amy Sebring: The file is 450K so you may want to check it out later. We deleted the repetition due to file size, and you will need speakers to hear it. Amy Sebring: Now it is our pleasure to introduce Ken Baechel, John Hodgens and Mark Guidetti joining us from CAN HQ at Albany, NY... Amy Sebring: Ken is the President of CAN which he founded in 1984. I can tell you from personal knowledge that he is well known in the Emergency Management community, and serves as the Chaplain for IAEM. Amy Sebring: John Hodgens is the National Sales Manager for CAN, and he comes from a background in technical sales and communications. Amy Sebring: Mark Guidetti is the Operations Manager for CAN, and is responsible for ensuring the performance of the warning system. Amy Sebring: For pictures of our guests, see http://www.can- intl.com/employ.htm Ken Baechel: Thanks Amy, it is an honor to be invited to present to the EIIP Forum... Ken Baechel: I have asked John Hodgens (john.hodgens@can-intl.com) our Sales Manager and Mark Guidetti (mark.guidetti@can-intl.com) our Operations Manager to discuss the Los Alamos fires, but first I'd like to give you some info about CAN. Ken Baechel: The company began in 1982 and started "The Missing Child Network" in 1984. This was the first time that a company used telephonic technology for emergency warning and alerting. Quickly we realized that there were many other applications beyond missing children and changed our name to Community Alert Network. (CAN)(www.can-intl.com)(800-992-2331) Ken Baechel: Community Alert Network®, Inc. (CAN®) is the leader in Emergency Notification Service in the U. S. and Canada. CAN® is a unique computer driven telephone warning and personnel recall service used by more than 650 + communities & corporations. Ken Baechel: CAN® delivers the ability to call large numbers of people and/or emergency response personnel in a short period of time using 250 + phone lines (15,000 + calls per hour/45,000 population). The flexibility of CAN® allows you to contact persons via telephone, pager, cellular phone and fax. Ken Baechel: CAN® will quickly reach community members on TDD/TTY machines, and can activate sirens. One easy phone call and our system becomes "your system".CAN® will quickly reach community members on TDD/TTY machines, and can activate sirens. One easy phone call and our system becomes "your system". Ken Baechel: CAN® also provides a sophisticated recall service whereby off duty response teams can receive a confidential message and answer a series of questions, i.e., "when will you arrive at the E.O.C.?" or questions regarding fitness and availability, and other questions. Ken Baechel: CAN® 's two Operations Centers (East Coast & West Coast) provide reliable off-site backup and redundancy while maintains a FTP server for secure upload/download of data. Ken Baechel: Community Alert Network®, Inc.'s Incident Controllers are on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Ken Baechel: CAN is a future-proof solution to your notification needs in that we will maintain the equipment, the phone lines, the data base and the staffing and free our clients up to address the situation at hand. Ken Baechel: John, would you please give us an overview about the Los Alamos fires last May ? John Hodgens: Thank you, Ken. Let me set the scene for this event first. John Hodgens: Just over 5 months ago on May 4th, 2000, the staff at Bandelier National Monument near Los Alamos, New Mexico, set fire to Upper Frijoles as part of a prescribed fire, or controlled burn. John Hodgens: As the wind picked up and shifted, the fire spread beyond the upper east fireline. This became a declared wildfire early the next afternoon. John Hodgens: The fire was contained on May 6th, but the wind returned on May 7th. Local officials contacted CAN and we began calling in the first group of firefighters on the afternoon of May 7th. John Hodgens: The fire then began to sweep through Santa Fe National Forest. Additional messages were sent by CAN for more firefighters. John Hodgens: Then direction specific messages were sent to residents and businesses by Captain Robert Repass. Over the next few days high winds pushed the fire into Los Alamos Canyon. John Hodgens: The towns of Los Alamos and White Rock were in the path of the fire. Homes and businesses needed to be evacuated. John Hodgens: Over the next several days, people are evacuated throughout the day and night. John Hodgens: One woman's comment on NBC nightly news was that she had five minutes to get out once she had received a phone call. In her rear view mirror she watched her house swallowed up in flames as she drove away. John Hodgens: By the latter part of May, what was being called the Cerro Grande Fire had destroyed over 230 homes and more than a quarter million acres. John Hodgens: During these Los Alamos Fires Community Alert Network was initially used for staff recall. John Hodgens: I have a CD ROM with actual voice messages on it where you can hear the increasing urgency in the activators voice as this fire accelerates. Contact me if you would like a copy. John Hodgens: Subsequently 14 different messages were activated over a 2 day period alerting people in different geographic areas as to what evacuation routes to take. John Hodgens: Amy, Slide one please. Amy Sebring: http://www.emforum.org/varena/CAN/Slide01.htm John Hodgens: In summary, over 27,000 calls were made evacuating people and giving them direction specific instructions. The activators to use our repeat option which enables the end receiver of the call to hear the message again. John Hodgens: The receiver of the call hears a tagged message at the end that simply states, to repeat, press 1 - to terminate press 2 or hang up. John Hodgens: This repeat option helps especially in the middle of the night when people need directions on where to evacuate. John Hodgens: Many of the people at Los Alamos gave Community Alert Network a lot of credit in helping them be able to say that there was no loss of life or injury. John Hodgens: Look for an article on CAN in 911 magazine this month that outlines this activation. John Hodgens: Amy, Slide two, Please. Amy Sebring: http://www.emforum.org/varena/CAN/Slide02.htm John Hodgens: Now, let's talk/type about how CAN works. Keep in mind that last year we handled over 900 incidents, drills and tests. John Hodgens: Here is the process to activate Community Alert Network. John Hodgens: First identify the need whether it is for staff re- call or community alerting, out-dial and or in-dial. John Hodgens: Then make one telephone call to Community Alert Network's operations center. John Hodgens: Give them the information as to who you want to call and where you want the message to go. John Hodgens: And we're off and calling on over 250 telephone lines at the same time. John Hodgens: Amy, Slide 3 , Please. Amy Sebring: http://www.emforum.org/varena/CAN/Slide03.htm John Hodgens: Once Community Alert Network has completed the calls you've requested, we provide an after action report immediately that is comprehensive and informative, giving details as to who received the calls and who didn't. John Hodgens: The fax report provides you an instant real world snap shot of what took place with each individual call out. It also provides you with a summary total. John Hodgens: You can determine with this fax report how many "busy" (status code 7) or "no answer" calls (status code 8) are still outstanding. John Hodgens: At this point, you can re-call CAN Operations and send the message again just to the Code 7's and 8's. This fax report has been a useful tool for real emergencies as well as exercises. John Hodgens: Amy, Slide 4, please. Amy Sebring: http://www.emforum.org/varena/CAN/Slide04.htm John Hodgens: Community Alert Network provides a "FUTURE-PROOF" field tested notification tool. CAN is a proven - easy to use notification service provider. It is easy to use and requires minimal training. Visit us on-line at www.can-intl.com . John Hodgens: Now, I'd like to introduce our Director of Operations, Mark Guidetti. Ken Baechel: Mark was "knocked off" he'll be right back Ken Baechel: John would you please tell them about CNN while we wait ? John Hodgens: We will be featured on CNN in the next week or two. CAN will be featured on a program called "Future Watch." Please drop me an email and I will let you know when it will air. Avagene Moore: Your email address, please John? John Hodgens: john.hodgens@can-intl.com Mark Guidetti: Hello All! I'm very excited to let you know about some of the services we offer which add up to make CAN unique in emergency notification ... Mark Guidetti: Redundancy, Secure File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Server, Flexibility, Multi-Language Messaging. Mark Guidetti: CAN has two redundant centers - One in Reno, NV and One in Albany, NY. Each center is a mirror image of the other and each has 3 complete sets of client data, a backup generator and totally redundant servers. Mark Guidetti: The centers can act independently, or as a single unit. This next slide shows this schematically. AMY - Put up Slide 5 Please. Amy Sebring: http://www.emforum.org/varena/CAN/Slide05.htm Mark Guidetti: CAN has established a Secure FTP server which serves at least two purposes. One - it provides a secure location for the client to provide data to CAN Mark Guidetti: Two - it provides a secure off-site data backup for the client. The server in CAN's Operations Centers are protected by double cipher locks with entrance on a strict need-to-know basis. Mark Guidetti: AMY - Put up Slide 6 Please. Amy Sebring: http://www.emforum.org/varena/CAN/Slide06.htm Mark Guidetti: CAN also provides flexible programs which are customized to meet your unique needs. AMY - Put up Slide 7 Please. Amy Sebring: http://www.emforum.org/varena/CAN/Slide07.htm Mark Guidetti: Finally - CAN has implemented the capability to have your messages translated into any of over 140 different languages - from the more common, like Spanish to the not-so-common, like Vietnamese and its dialects. Mark Guidetti: That concludes our overview, and we would be happy to answer your questions, so now I will turn it back over to Amy. Amy Sebring: Thanks Mark. Audience please enter a question mark (?) to indicate you wish to be recognized, go ahead and compose your comment or question, but wait for recognition before hitting the enter key or clicking on Send. Amy Sebring: Please indicate in your question to whom it is addressed. We now invite your questions/comments. Kenn Honig: ? Amy Sebring: Kenn please. Kenn Honig: Ken, I remember that CAN also was activated for a fire /Haz-Mat event in Alaska. How did that work out? Amy Sebring: ? Ken Baechel: It went very well... David Crews: ? Ken Baechel: We helped evacuate the Homer Spit (peninsula) ... John Hodgens: It happened in July 1998. CAN completed 8,627 phone calls to residents along the Kenai Peninsula Ken Baechel: After there was an explosion... Rick Tobin: ? Ken Baechel: containing hazardous materials. John Hodgens: The Haz/Mat was ammonia Amy Sebring: How much does the cost per call work out to, and are some of these costs recoverable under disaster declarations? John Hodgens: Cost. Our average cost per call is roughly $1.00 assuming the message is 20 - 30 seconds in length John Hodgens: The costs have been recoverable under several disaster declarations. Ken Baechel: Often recovered from the spiller or FEMA. Amy Sebring: Thanks John, David next please. David Crews: How do you do the language translations? I have a translation program (40 languages) and parts of it have large dictionaries, but other parts have small dictionaries and do not do accurate translations. John Hodgens: We recently delivered emergency messages in several Laotian dialects. Mark Guidetti: We use a service which can be contacted at the time of the activation or in advance for pre-recorded messages. Ken Baechel: We have a special arrangement with a service that has someone who speaks one of 140+ lang. within 20 seconds. Amy Sebring: Thanks, Rick next please. David Crews: How do you ensure accuracy of the translated messages? Rick Tobin: Has CAN been used by local leaders to call the public to attend "Hot Wash" discussions after a major event, like the Los Alamos fires? Rick Tobin: I'll defer to David's question first. Ken Baechel: Mark or John Mark Guidetti: I'll try this Mark Guidetti: We have a very reliable service which we tested in advance … Mark Guidetti: We have also had messages translated in writing and have had them reviewed. Very good results. Art Botterell: ? Amy Sebring: Ken do you want to address Rick's question now? D. Seth Staker: Mark: In the early 90's in Charleston, WV MIC was released within the Union Carbide/Rhone Poulenc plant. In that community they had a community call down system that operated during shelters-in-place. During this event the phone system was so overloaded that it became inoperable. No one ever stated that the call down system was causative, however, can you address this issue as it relates to this potential and your system? Ken Baechel: Occasionally... Ken Baechel: The most common use after an event is... Ken Baechel: usually to give an all clear... Ken Baechel: but rarely for "Hot Wash". Amy Sebring: Art if you don't mind lets take Seth's question while we can still see it ... Amy Sebring: who would like to respond to Seth's question regarding overloaded phone systems? Mark Guidetti: I'll go Mark Guidetti: We have selected 250 + lines purposely. Mark Guidetti: This was judged to be the maximum to send in to certain areas without taxing the central offices. Amy Sebring: Let's go on to Art now please. Amy Sebring: ? Art Botterell: OK... this is for Ken, to start... Ken, in a recent email... Art Botterell: I saw mention of "Global Storm Link"... wonder if you could say anything about that? Ken Baechel: We have not released much on it but.. Ken Baechel: I'll defer to John for.. Ken Baechel: general comments. Ken Baechel: It is exciting and world wide. Ken Baechel: Another CAN product. John Hodgens: We are considering contracting with an international service that can provide weather thresholds to corporations… Isabel McCurdy: ? John Hodgens: this will enable them to determine weather threats to IS centers around the world … John Hodgens: it is in research and development, stay tuned. Ken Baechel: Talking with live Meteorologists. Amy Sebring: Ken, I expect the reason a CAN system was in place near Los Alamos was because of the lab, and that nobody anticipated using it for a wildfire. Does that type of multi-purpose use happen frequently in your experience? D. Seth Staker: ? Ken Baechel: Frequently we are... Ken Baechel: hired for one reason and... Ken Baechel: used for another. Amy Sebring: Isabel please. Isabel McCurdy: Are you linked up with the E-Comm centre in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada? Ken Baechel: John ? Rick Tobin: ? John Hodgens: We have contracts in Vancouver however I am not sure if we are linked with E Comm. Amy Sebring: Ok, Rick please. Rick Tobin: What has CAN's role been in coordinating messages with EAS throughout the US? Is there a consistent integration approach that works? Ken Baechel: Mark ? Mark Guidetti: EAS please? Rick Tobin: Emergency Alert System Ken Baechel: Part 1 -- Identify who you are Ken Baechel: Part 2 -- Say what has happened Ken Baechel: Part 3 -- Explain what you want the hearer to do Ken Baechel: Part 4 -- Where do they go for more info. Amy Sebring: That's all we have time for .... Amy Sebring: Thank you very much Ken, John and Mark for being with us today. We very much appreciate your time and effort. Please stand by a moment while we take care of some business. Ken Baechel: Thanks Amy, Avagene, et al Amy Sebring: We will have a text transcript posted later today, and reformatted versions with links to the slides at the end of the week. Avagene can you tell us what is on for next week please? Avagene Moore: Thanks, Amy. My appreciation to Ken, John and Mark for a fine presentation today - thank you, gentlemen. ... Avagene Moore: Next week, Wednesday November 1, 12 Noon EST, please join us in the Virtual Classroom for a discussion on the "Comprehensive Hazmat Emergency Response - Capabilities Assessment Program (CHER-CAP)." ... Avagene Moore: Catherine Pomerantz, FEMA Region III, will be our speaker of the hour and will tell us all about this new nationwide program. Catherine is in the audience today and we look forward to her presentation and invite each of you to return next week and bring your peers. ... Avagene Moore: That's it for now, Amy. Amy Sebring: Thanks Ava. If you are not on our mailing list and would like to receive weekly notices and our newsletter, please see http://www.speccomm.com:81/guest/RemoteListSummary/EIIP to subscribe. Amy Sebring: Thanks to all our participants today. We will adjourn the session for now, but you are welcome to remain for open discussion. You no longer need to use question marks. Please help us express our appreciation to Ken, John and Mark for today's presentation.