STATE INVESTING IN QUAKE ASSESSMENT SOFTWARE.Byline: Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. With the click of his mouse minutes after an earthquake strikes, Ron Eguchi can pinpoint damaging shaking down to census tracts and identify hardest-hit areas down to the ZIP code zip code System of postal-zone codes (zip stands for “zone improvement plan”) introduced in the U.S. in 1963 to improve mail delivery and exploit electronic reading and sorting capabilities. . On Wednesday, he demonstrated how a software program he helped develop at the quake consulting firm EQE EQE Equivalent Quantum Efficiency EQE Environmental Quality Evaluation International Inc., could quickly produce estimates of structural damage, deaths and injuries. The Early Post-Earthquake Damage Assessment Tool is one of several technologies developed since the 1994 Northridge earthquake that should allow scientists and government officials to speed emergency response and recovery. The state's Office of Emergency Services emergency services Emergency care '…services …necessary to prevent death or serious impairment of health and, because of the danger to life or health, require the use of the most accessible hospital available and equipped to furnish those services' , which paid most of the nearly $500,000 cost of developing the software has been testing 10 copies since Feb. 19. Now it must decide how to use them, said Eguchi, director of EQE's Center for Advanced Planning and Research in Irvine. EPEDAT integrates up-to-the-minute data on quake magnitude and location with computerized building inventories, seismic hazard maps, and census records to help officials know where to send emergency crews first. Eguchi showcased EPEDAT at a daylong workshop, ``Making the Most of New Real-Time Information Technologies in Managing Earthquake Emergencies,'' organized by EQE and funded by the U.S. Geological Survey, Southern California Earthquake Center The Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC), headquartered at the University of Southern California, was founded in 1991 with a mission to:
Jill Andrews, director of knowledge transfer for SCEC SCEC Southern California Earthquake Center SCEC Stop Commercial Exploitation of Children (now Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood) SCEC Sunrise County Economic Council SCEC Small Computer Engineering Center , said the session was designed to encourage the emergency management community ``to integrate information from these technologies into their planning.'' Richard Andrews, director of the governor's Office of Emergency Services, endorsed the emerging technologies. He warned that governments often are so hesitant ``to make a commitment to any solution'' that by the time they pick one, the technology is obsolete. |
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