One of the many tools that federal agents and Denver police and emergency officials will be using during the 2008 Democratic National Convention is as simple and revolutionary as the so-called mapping mashups you can use on the Internet to find, say, the nearest coffeehouse to your office.
Geographic Information System software, or GIS, was the focus of more than 250 security and public safety officials – including top officials with the Department of Homeland Security – attending a two-day conference here this week.
Once more associated with academic tools, the kind of information the public now associates with Google Earth or Yahoo Maps technology was touted as a powerful new tool for high-security events.
“Geography,” said Environmental Systems Research Institute founder Jack Dangermond, “it’s a new language. It’s a new medium.”
In a virtual what-if on large screens here Tuesday morning, a tech wizard displayed a satellite image of the city of Denver in real time, marked a location on Interstate 25 south of downtown and showed how the mapping software could predict the plume of a large chlorine spill.
Connecting to the Web, the analyst, Jeff Baranyi, with the conference sponsor, ESRI, quickly clicked to a powerful computer that took into account wind patterns and weather conditions to show where the toxic gas was likely to spread.
Another menu connected to a different database showed demographic information about the number of people in the immediate area that would have to be evacuated.
Another menu would have allowed an emergency official, with a click, to send information to first responders that indicated exactly where barricades needed to be placed.
Yet another menu brought up access to webcams in the area that would provide a quick look at events on the ground.
The software allows real-time tracking of squad cars, firetrucks and ambulances. It allows for the tracking, say, of the Democratic presidential nominee’s motorcade.
Want to see a three-dimensional representation of all the places from which a sniper would have a shot at the front door of the Pepsi Center, where the convention is to be held? It can be done.
ESRI – which got its start almost 40 years ago producing mapping solutions for land-use planners – first built the GIS platform for security officers in time for the 2002 Super Bowl after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The software was used during the national political conventions in New York City and Boston in 2004.
Denver’s director of the Office of Emergency Management, Justin DeMello, told the attendees the software could help the 36 agencies now planning for the Democratic convention.
“When you’re planning for a national special security event,” DeMello said, “the planning is just incredible.”
Chuck Plunkett: 303-954-1333 or cplunkett@denverpost.com
