BARB: Barb Extensions

Key Benefits of "BARB for Disasters:"

• Automatically creates extensive run-cards for major disaster responses.
• Makes major or minor changes to the run cards quickly, inexpensively, and “on-the-fly.”
• Expertly handles multiple station/unit orders and mutual-aid stations for DHS.
• Permits the building of run cards using staging areas that can be switched on in the CAD as required.
  

Loudoun County Experience
Post 9/11, there has been an increased awareness and need for enhanced deployment tools to prepare Fire Departments against potential disasters. Loudoun County, VA has taken a step in this regard. The agency has exploited the advantage of BARB to include over 200 mutual- aid stations in its run order, despite of not having available maps for the mutual-aid stations. In the event of a major disaster, Loudoun County is equipped with run cards of over 200 stations deep, spanning across 50 miles.

Below are images that illustrate the run card order including over 200 mutual aid stations.

Applications of “BARB for Disasters”

Area-wide Mutual-aid Response
Major disasters generally choke the CAD system and tax a department’s available resources. Extensive run cards, including area-wide mutual-aid stations, can cope with large-scale disasters; but without an automated system, the process is tedious and error-prone.

BARB can include mutual aid agreements at both the regional and statewide levels and logically select units for the scene with the shortest response times. At dispatch, it can provide the deployment officer with a comprehensive list of available units and their types. It can automate within minutes the building of massive response time-sensitive run cards up to and over 500 deep.


Interoperability
BARB for Disasters also fosters interoperability for earth-moving equipment, tow trucks, water rescuers, animal welfare personnel, emergency room capacities, and many other resources. It can show the logic of staging areas; it can pick lists for a host of resources including their response times. All such information, once researched and defined, can be entered into the CAD through BARB and changed or updated as rapidly as required.

Area-wide information sharing
BARB generates an area-wide analysis of all the combined stations, road networks, travel speeds, unit locations, and capabilities. If all of this data is shared throughout the affected region, then each communication center involved will work with identical information and interact in a manner that fully promotes interoperability.

This exchange of information must be sustained on an ongoing basis. Whenever one of the participating agencies changes its plan – e.g., station relocations, addition of new stations, equipment/unit relocations or alterations in road networks and speeds – run cards for the other departments must be updated. BARB is the vital automation tool rendering it easy to transfer updates and changes.

Disaster planning by staging areas
Staging areas serve as interim stations for available units not yet assigned. In BARB, each staging area can actually be designated a “station” and incorporated into the pick list. During an actual disaster, BARB would identify not just the closest station but also the closest staging area from which to request units. This is another significant feature of interoperability which can be tested theoretically and incorporated in a disaster plan.

Homeland Security: Planning for Earthquake, Wildfire, Terrorist Attack
When the resources of a fire department are stretched thin—during wildfire or an earthquake, for example—BARB can build pick lists which specify available apparatus in outlying stations along with their type, their station’s location, and network of roads ‘in.” A multi-county pick list can be easily built so that the number of available apparatus is at least 10 times greater than previously supposed.

In addition, BARB can incorporate Mutual Aid Agreements, at both the regional and state levels, and logically select distant units with the fastest response times to the scene. BARB can thus give a deployment officer a comprehensive list of available units and their capabilities at the time of dispatch. Using BARB, the department can also factor the deployment of earth-moving equipment, brush clearing units, air tankers, and other vital resources.

Dispatch Validator (DiVa)
Communication Centers are switching from the traditional run-card based CAD to AVL-based CAD to assist with dispatch recommendations. But there exist insecurities and possible anomalies in the recommendation that need to be verified before going live. Dispatch Validator (DiVa), a stand alone tool, is used to validate AVL-based CAD recommendations. DiVa is used to detect and correct anomalies in real-time and to ensure accurate CAD recommendations.

DiVa as an Electronic Back-up Book
CAD is software used by communication centers to do more than just dispatch units. It is a comprehensive IT solution for the comm. centers and is the central hub for all Fire and EMS services. It is real-time software running 24x7 and life and death is depended on the functionality of the CAD. Smooth operation of the CAD, without glitches and technical issues becomes crucial for a Comm. Center functionality. But what happens if something goes wrong…do you have a back up? What does a Comm. Center do for backup of such crucial and time sensitive data?

DiVa as Pick Lists for Disaster Response
While CAD provides dispatch recommendations to Comm. Centers and helps them decide what units to send on call, CAD may not always provide the “complete” response to an incident type, especially in disaster situations. During disasters, when Comm. Centers are strained for resources, additional/special units need to be considered for dispatch and built in to the run orders and recommendations. While CADs generate a list of capabilities based on the incident type, they do not include mutual aid stations, special units, etc. in disaster situations.

DiVa not only helps validate a dispatch recommendation provided by the CAD, but reinforces this decision by inclusion of mutual aid stations, and other special units. An Operational Chief in the field can use DiVa as an in-vehicle reference tool for all specialty vehicles that are available to build a run order. That is, DiVa helps the Chief build pick lists including specialty vehicles, mutual aid stations, etc., in real-time, when faced by a disaster. This tool will provide the Operational Chief supplementary information that a CAD cannot provide.

Atom-order BARB
Created for FDNY EMS, where response zones are referred to as atoms, atom-order BARB is an extension of unit order BARB. Ambulance deployment can be fluid, in that ambulances very rarely are present at their assigned cross street location (CSL). For this reason CAD recommends units from their closest atom instead of closed CSL or post or station. EMS CAD requires for each atom, a list of closest to farthest atoms. The EMS atom-order BARB computes the atom-order for each atom.

EMS/ Hospital-order BARB
The purpose of the hospital BARB is for the ambulances to identify the closest hospital that the patient should be taken to. Each hospital can accept patients of certain category only, which are referred to as “critical care codes” such as pediatrician, general, stroke, trauma, etc. The Hospital-order BARB computes for each atom, for each critical care code, the hospital order - a list of closest to furthest hospitals.