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September 22, 2009
By Elizabeth Summers
The Reporter of Sand Mountain
Boaz City School officials plan for the worst on a daily basis. Binders and books contain the school’s emergency plans and detailed schematics of all five of the system’s school buildings.
But all those books and papers may become things of the past thanks to the Virtual Alabama School Safety Program.
Virtual Alabama is a program put together through the Alabama and U.S. Departments of Homeland Security, Alabama Department of Criminal Justice, Auburn University in Montgomery and the Alabama Department of Education giving officials the ability to map important buildings and landmarks and store the information on a secure Web site. The information is, in turn, accessible by police, fire and Emergency Management Agency personnel if and when a natural disaster or emergency happens.
Boaz school officials, police Chief Terry Davis, fire Chief Mike Sparks, school resource office Rusty Rowan and representatives from the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office and Emergency Management Agency took part in a briefing Thursday to see the program in action at Boaz Middle School.
Boaz City Schools are the first in the state to take part in Virtual Alabama, said
Principal Alan Johnson.
“I think this is the first time we have had all these law enforcement and emergency personnel in the same building at one time,” Johnson said. “It is an amazing program that I think will be very beneficial to our schools.”
Boaz school officials volunteered to be the first schools in the program. Working with various agencies, Boaz officials walked Boaz Middle School, mapping the school building and locations of fire extinguishes, fire pull stations and chemical storage sites, layering them along with evacuation routes, disaster staging areas and tornado shelter sites.
The locations are placed on individual layers placed over photos of the school, the campus and the school’s interior layout. All photos are provided by the Revenue Commissioner and satellite imagery.
The maps contain icons and photos, making it easy for emergency workers to identify trouble spots, dangerous areas or places where students should be readily found.
In case of an emergency, first responders can log onto the Virtual Alabama Web site, a secure site specifically for emergency and school personnel, from in-car computers or computers at a command center.
Officials can view as many or as few layers as needed, depending on the situation. As an example, one layer showed only fire fighting supplies, such as extinguishers, pull stations, hydrants and utility valves. Another layer showed triage areas, student medical aid staging sites and the location a medical helicopter could land safely.
“The Virtual Alabama maps 37 items of interest. We are to prepare for all man-made and natural disasters. This is all done through a Federal Department of Homeland Security grant. There is no dollar cost to the schools,” said Matthew Duke, senior director of the Center for Government at Auburn University, Montgomery.
“This program promotes information sharing between schools and first responders. We want those interactions to occur before those officials and responders meet out front of the buildings in an emergency.
”Boaz officials mapped the school in four days. On the fourth day, officials trained others in the program’s operation allowing them to map Boaz’s other four buildings.
“It is so easy to do,” Duke said. “You will be able to log on and edit your buildings as you do renovations and build additions.
“It also utilizes security cameras in a way we have never been able to before. This technology breaks down the barriers we have faced in the past. If law enforcement officers or firemen arrive on scene, they can access that camera information and know exactly where to send in personnel. We have never had that capability before. All that came from (school shooting incidents) in other states. Time was wasted not knowing where the shooters were.
“This program is available to any governmental agency using it for governmental work. For example, Agricultural Commissioner Ron Sparks has mapped the location of every gas station in the state. When you are evacuating residents from the coast and moving them through the state, they will need to know where to get gas or where stations may be that haven’t run out of fuel.”
By year’s end, Boaz officials hope to have all five schools and campuses mapped and input to Virtual Alabama.
Currently, one school in each of the 133 school districts is being mapped into the program. Once done, those trained in Virtual Alabama will train officials from all 1,500 schools in the state.
Officials are also working to create a virtual Gulf Coast, as an example, for use in hurricane or tsunami emergency rescue efforts.
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