Disaster Web Portal Gives First Responders a Means to Deliver Real-Time Information to Citizens During an Emergency Situation

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Over time many technological advances have augmented the services provided by first responders, and the evolution of the internet is one resource that has been invaluable to fire departments, EMS responders, and emergency agencies across the United States and around the world. One area in which the internet has been of notable assistance to first responders has been the distribution of information to the public during emergency situations. It is now commonplace to see that fire departments and municipalities post updates on fires, Hazmat situations, motor vehicle accidents, and natural disasters, such as the recent Triangle Complex Fire, Tea Fire and Sylmar Fire that destroyed thousands of acres of land and displaced thousands of Southern Californians. Information about the location of the incident and resulting evacuations, road closures, and school closures are conveyed to the public through these websites.

Jay Lickfett and the CalIT2 ResCUE ResponSphere research team at the University of California, Irvine, have taken this type of website to another level with the design of their Disaster Web Portal. After over a year of research and work with the Ontario Fire Department in Southern California, Lickfett and his team, launched this interactive site on September 11, 2007 for the City of Ontario. This pilot site features the public information releases and press releases that other fire department currently have, and expands upon it with the use of Google maps and custom software to provide the public and media with real-time information on all aspects of an emergency event, including specific locations of the incidents, road closures, evacuation areas and the locations of shelter and aid stations. The Disaster Web Portal also features a Family Reunification system, where citizens can log in and register their safety and well-being so that family members who cannot reach them by phone or other means can be informed of their status. Besides user-generated information, the Disaster Web Portal also uses a web-crawler to search other pertinent sites for well-being registrations. In addition, members of the community can share their needs and respond to the needs of others through the Donation module. Users can post what they are in need of, and can also post their offerings of assistance to those in crises, in the forms of goods, services and monetary donations.

Besides being of great assistance to the general public, the Disaster Web Portal is very versatile and can be used and updated by Public Information Officers and first responders from any location, making it possible to give citizens real-time updates about the emergency events. Jacob Green of the City of Ontario Police Department's Administrative Service Bureau and one of the city's main liaisons with the ResCUE (Responding to Crises and Unexpected Evnts) research team says, "The greatest thing about the Disaster Web Portal is that the data can be imputed from anywhere. It can be imputed by the Public Information Officer in the field or by the Public Information Officers that are working in the Joint Information Center at either a mobile command post or at an Emergency Operations Center. Anywhere that we have a wireless laptop connection, essentially we can input data into the Web portal and provide that information to the community."

This unique system was developed by the CalIT2 ResCUE ResponsSphere and was funded by the National Science Foundation. The City of Ontario's pilot site has been very successful in communicating information to the public about a variety of incidents, most of them involving structure fires and motor vehicle accidents (MVA's). However, the largest test and use of the Disaster Web Portal came on October 21, 2007, when the City of Ontario was affected by the Walker wildfire. In the three day period of the fire, 5,000 unique visitors came to the site, registering 50,000 hits, as residents checked on the fire's progress and monitored street closures and evacuations. Green, Lickfett, and the City of Ontario were pleased with the performance of the website, as many of its capabilities were put to use.

For his contributions to this project, Jay Lickfett was given the Platinum Award by the California Emergency Services Association in 2008. CESA presents this award to an individual each year that has provided outstanding service in emergency management. With the great success of the Disaster Web Portal in the City of Ontario, Lickfett and ResCUE are working with other fire departments in Southern California, including the cities of Rancho Cucamonga, Orange, Aliso Viejo and Rancho Santa Margarita, as well as other departments across the United States, to implement the portal in their municipalities. Lickfett says that this technology will be packaged and offered to any fire department, emergency agency or city that is interested in deploying it free of charge, and will be widely available within the next few months.

For more information about the ResCUE Project and Disaster Portal click here, and to view the City of Ontario's Disaster Web Portal click here.