Page 51 - FCW, August 2019

CaseStudy
Alabama preps
responders for World
Games 2021
With the help of DHS, city and county agencies will test public safety technology and integration in a simulated disaster
BY STEPHANIE KANOWITZ
First responders in the city of Bir- mingham and Jefferson County, Ala., are gearing up early to ensure the safety of thousands of visitors during the World Games 2021 by working with the Department of Homeland Security to test technologies that will keep responders better connected and protected.
The World Games 2021 is an inter- national multisport competition involv- ing 3,600 athletes from more than 100 countries and is expected to draw an
extra 100,000 visitors to the area.
In August, local first responders and federal partners will participate in a hazmat and search-and-rescue incident response resulting from an earthquake scenario that partially collapses a sta- dium. Dubbed the Next Generation First Responder (NGFR)-Birmingham Shaken Fury Operational Experimenta- tion, the exercise will promote the inte- gration of first-responder technology across jurisdictions and support adop-
tion of the latest public safety tools.
“We are trying to think outside cur- rent systems because the operations associated with the games will be on a scale \\\[local responders are\\\] unac- customed to,” said Norman Speicher, S&T’s technology integration lead for the effort. “They know they have to evolve and scale their situational awareness in ways they have not done before. They will have to incorporate other agencies that they haven’t done before. We are trying to show some tools that would enable that.”
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