About ALERT!
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ALERT! is about news, technology, developments and features of interest to the emergency response and disaster training community. ETC Simulation, developers of ADMS, the Advanced Disaster Management Simulator, sponsors its production, and always welcomes story submissions or suggestions.
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Welcome to the 5th issue of ALERT! Emergency Response Training Digest. In this issue we're covering two newly opened grant programs available to firefighters and other emergency responders, a new ADMS-COMMAND simulator at New York City's Office of Emergency Management and few other stories of interest. We hope you enjoy.
Best Regards,
Adam McCard
Managing Editor
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FEMA Grants Open Now
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 There are two grant opportunities currently available which can assist in purchasing training systems or services, the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP) and the Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG). Emergency management agencies, fire departments and non-affiliated EMS organizations are eligible to apply for funding. For more information, visit the following FEMA websites:
Homeland Security Grant Program
Assistance to Firefighters Grant
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New York City Office of Emergency Management Purchases ADMS-COMMAND
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 ETC Simulation just announced the signing of a contract with the New York City Office of Emergency Management (NYC OEM) to deliver a multi-station ADMS-COMMAND, the next-generation Advanced Disaster Management Simulator training system. The contract includes a turnkey, multi-discipline team-training system and a comprehensive library of customized training scenarios with an integrated After Action Review and evaluation system.
The ADMS-COMMAND training system delivered will become an integral component of the overall Citywide Incident Management System (CIMS) Training Program, CIMS is the City's program for responding to and recovering from emergencies, and for managing planned events. The NYC OEM implemented this protocol to comply with the federally mandated National Incident Management System (NIMS), enhancing NIMS to address New York City's specific emergency planning and response needs.
Marco Van Wijngaarden, ADMS President, commented, "We are excited to have the opportunity to work with such a prestigious organization as the NYC OEM. We look forward to our collaboration with the other partners in the CIMS Curriculum Development Team, and to a long-term relationship in which we are able to contribute to training and preparing New York City's first responders in a collaborative, interagency environment."
ADMS-COMMAND is a high fidelity interactive team training simulation platform that offers a proven methodology to provide cost-effective synthetic incident and disaster management experience.
Since 1995, the system has been used to train emergency responders around the world to better prepare to respond to and mitigate incidents. By presenting engaging, real-world environments and stressful scenarios, ADMS-COMMAND enables response and rescue personnel to perform and enhance team and individual skill sets at all levels of response. It is also used to test and validate emergency response and management plans. ADMS-COMMAND bridges the gap between tabletop exercises and real world experience.
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Hong Kong Fire Service Purchases ADMS-COMMAND System
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Hong Kong Fire Services Department (HKFSD)
recently recieved a multi-station ADMS-COMMAND, team simulation training system.
The system includes several open-ended, dynamic scenarios within a regionalized virtual environment. The scenarios include a multi-vehicle highway traffic accident, a B-747 crash-landed in a residential area and a high-rise apartment building fire. HKFSD can edit and change the scenarios to fit various training objectives. The system also includes regionalized response vehicles.
The HKFSD employs a force of over 9,000 firefighters who serve one of the most densely populated urban areas in the world.
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| School Violence Simulation Trainer Delivered to Pennsylvania Counter Terrorism Task Force
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ETC Simulation recently announced the delivery of a new training scenario to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Regional Counterterrorism Task Force (CTTF) for their ADMS-COMMAND system.
Originally delivered in 2006 with the ability to train multi-disciplinary first responder teams in dealing with many types of transportation-related accidents, HAZMAT (hazardous materials) releases and CBRNE (chemical, biological, radioactive, nuclear and explosive) disasters, the CTTF's ADMS-COMMAND system has now been upgraded with the ability to train SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) personnel in mitigating a hostage situation at a suburban high school.
The scenario, designed by CTTF subject matter experts with ETC's ADMS curriculum developers, is an open-ended and dynamic simulation of a six-classroom high school building with over 100 students, teachers and administrators. The scenario presents a number of armed terrorists who have taken the school hostage. Responders must react appropriately and mitigate the developing situation to best avoid and minimize casualties. Since no ADMS scenarios are pre-scripted, the action and results depend entirely on the choices made by responders during the exercise. CTTF instructors have the ability to customize exercises on the fly to allow for different types of situations, including varying the number of armed hostage-takers, their tactics, the number of hostages and number of casualties. The virtual hostage-takers and hostages can be controlled by instructors or entirely by the simulator's artificial intelligence engine in response to the trainee's mitigation efforts. At any time, instructors can make injects like terminating a hostage, cutting facility power, changing weather or evacuating rooms. This scenario is also useful for training school staff and management teams in decision making under stressful conditions while working within emergency management procedures.
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ALERT! is published by ETC Simulation and is available by free subscription.
Story suggestions and submissions are always welcome!
amccard@etcsimulation.com
407.282.3378 x3039
www.ADMSTraining.com
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