| Kamiakin High joins state mapping project
May 27, 2007
By Nathan Isaacs
Tri-City Herald
Kennewick police Officer Mike Meyer has helped map a plan for how police would respond to an emergency at Kamiakin High School, where he's been a school resource officer for the last five years.
He has scouted locations for where to place a police command post. He's picked out a spot where he'll try to corral the news media. He has worked with school administrators on where 1,700 students would be evacuated. He even helped find the longitude and latitude and elevation of a site where a helicopter could land.
And he has helped put all that into a mapping software program, called Rapid Response, that could be viewed by others responding to an emergency at the school.
"It has everything you could ever want," he said, of the program. "It does have a lot of useful information."
Police and fire departments and school districts have been working with a Seattle-based technology company since 2003 to digitally map all of the state's K-12 schools. The mapping program quickly gives first responders information to manage a crisis.
"It makes the layout of the facility readily available to responding law enforcement and firefighters in an emergency," said Benton County Sheriff Larry Taylor.
The project started with money to map all of the state's 462 high schools, then tackle as many of the state's 1,275 middle and elementary schools as possible with any remaining money.
This year, the state Legislature budgeted $6.3 million to complete the project, said Taylor, who also is the legislative chair for the Washington Police Chiefs and Sheriffs association, which is overseeing the project.
The association has contracted with Seattle-based Prepared Response and its Rapid Responder digital mapping system program for the project.
The computer program allows police, firefighters and emergency crews to quickly find school blueprints, photographs, evacuation routes and other information on the Internet.
In 2003, the program proved invaluable in Spokane, when a Lewis and Clark High School student with a loaded handgun walked into a classroom, said Gary Sabol, spokesman for Prepared Response.
He said Rapid Responder was used throughout the standoff. He said the program helped police locate where the shooter was in the school, helped in evacuating 2,000 students and faculty and even showed authorities where to shut off gas to the science room where the student was holed up. The student was wounded after he pointed the gun at officers.
Sabol said the program has also been used nationally in responding to bomb threats, school lockdowns and in dealing with broken water pipes. "We call it an all-hazards approach," he said.
He said 735 middle and elementary schools remain to be mapped in the state. He said the project could be completed by late 2008.
Nationally, Sabol said, 1,700 schools are in the system, including Washington and nine other states. He said Washington has the only statewide program. He said some sporting complexes and hotels also have been mapped using the program.
Right now, the state contract only calls for mapping K-12 public schools. But Taylor said mapping colleges and universities should be considered in the future, especially in light of the Virginia Tech shootings. Sabol said the company has mapped a couple of Spokane-area colleges.
He said the first step in the process is an orientation meeting with school districts, police and fire departments and others. They then discuss and map out emergency plans, identify locations for different potential needs, such as where to set up roadblocks, where a helicopter would land, where a command center would be set up or where evacuated students would be taken.
School floor plans are complemented with dozens of school photos. Those include images from inside and outside the building, photos of fire hydrants, photos of gas and water shut-off valves, classroom photos and photos of different entries into the school.
The school districts and first responders also add school demographics, such as the number of students and faculty. Staff pictures also are included in the mapping program. Also available are emergency plans, hazardous waste locations and other resources like the local sex offender registry.
Meyer has a wish-list on how to improve the program. That includes patching in the school's surveillance video cameras. He would also would like 911 dispatchers to be able to send the maps directly to responding police officer's patrol car computers, rather than have officers trying to link to the secure Web site while driving.
Steve Sautter, spokesman for Benton County Emergency Services, said his agency has volunteered to act as a coordinator for the schools, first responders and Prepared Response in keeping the information updated.
Richland police Capt. Mike Cobb, who is helping coordinate the school mapping in Benton County, said the project is making good progress even though it has so many different partners contributing information.
"It is very much a teamwork approach, but a logistical nightmare," he said.
"The goal is to get usable data to officers in the field should a crisis in our schools occur, should it be natural or human caused," Cobb said. |
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