Omaha UASI Region Deploys Urgent Alert Notification And Scenario Management Solution

The Omaha, Nebraska, Tri-County Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) Region, composed of the City of Omaha, Douglas County, Sarpy County and Washington County have begun to deploy the FS Codespear interoperable industry platform to enhance emergency management, planning and response within each respective agency's emergency management operations.

In addition to the implementation of FS Codespear's core SmartMsg 5.2 alert notification application, the Omaha UASI Region has also licensed the FS Codespear Scenario Manager module, which is an integrated incident planning and execution tool that enables the definition of tiered response plans, based on incident events and their dependencies with other tasks, resources, or procedures. This application module sets a new paradigm in achieving National Incident Management System (NIMS) compliance and electronic execution of response plans and mutual aid requests.

The Omaha UASI region covers more than 650,000 citizens spanning over 900 square miles. After considerable planning and competitive evaluation, FS Codespear was awarded the regional contract. In addition, FS Codespear supported the Omaha UASI Region in October 2006 with the rapid implementation of a pilot alerting system. This system supported the "Operation Triple Play" multi-jurisdictional exercise, which was the largest event to-date designed to test readiness of key agencies in the event of a major disaster in the area. This exercise validated the FS Codespear technology and its ability to meet the demanding requirements of a multi agency regional deployment.

"We are pleased to partner with Federal Signal Codespear to enhance emergency management and response," commented Paul Johnson, Director of Emergency Management for Douglas County, "Our regional deployment of a redundant and multidevice SmartMsg-based alerting emergency management system will enable over 2,500 county emergency management, first responder and municipal personnel to significantly enhance our management and response to critical incidents within the Tri-County Omaha Region." Critical to Omaha's success will be FS Codespear's extensive customer support, which will include: user training, consultation of hardware and system needs, system maintenance, application configuration, off-site redundancy and back-up, and recommendations for best practices.

SOURCE: Federal Signal