FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Wednesday, June 26,2002

Maps, photos prepare schools for disasters

Glendale is the first city in Arizona state to electronically map all of its public and private schools in preparation for a disaster.

Glendale is the first city in the state to electronically map all of its public and private schools in preparation for a disaster.

Aerial maps and digital photos of all 50 Glendale public and private schools will be stored in a computer program accessible by school, police and fire officials. With just a few keystrokes, police and firefighters will know where the gas lines are and even where chlorine for the pool is stored before they ever step onto a school campus. There will be no guessing, no surprises.

Officials will know the lay of the land before they enter a dangerous situation, such as when a 14-year-old boy held 32 students and a teacher at gunpoint at an elementary school in Glendale two years ago. "We know if we plan it out, we will have a better response," said Kelley Mure, Glendale emergency services coordinator.

Glendale officials hope to eventually map other government buildings, including city hall, public libraries and community centers. The mapping project, estimated to cost $130,000, is funded by a Project Impact grant that Glendale received under a federal disaster program. Tempe, Yuma and Scottsdale also received Project Impact grants for disaster planning.

Glendale is the first to electronically map its schools, officials said. Using a digital camera, officials have stored dozens of exterior and interior photos in computer files. They have created emergency contact lists, determined where children will go when they evacuate a school and have designated areas for the students to be reunited with their parents. "When they (police and firefighters) first come to the school, they will be able to respond in a working manner rather than have to study the plans," said Terry Williams, coordinator of Project Impact for Glendale.

School disaster preparedness was a tough lesson learned by police and firefighters responding to the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado. Officials had no maps or blueprints of the large school building and instead relied on school officials fleeing the building to help direct them. Police later estimated they lost 70 percent of the radio communication because officials were not on the same channels or because fire and police officials used two types of radios.

Police from Pierce County, Washington, who studied the Columbine incident, wrote a computer program that would save aerial maps and blueprints of buildings. The idea was to help emergency crews navigate large high school campuses, which in many cases have multiple buildings. Glendale High School, for example, has 31 buildings and a swimming pool.

In 2000, Prepared Response, computer software company based in Washington state, bought the computer program and expanded it so that it can be used simultaneously by fire, police and school officials. Those in the command centers can post minute-by-minute updates on the computer message board, which Glendale officials hope will minimize confusion. The Prepared Response program, which Glendale has purchased, is now being used by schools, cities and private businesses in five Washington counties, said Marti Wagner, director of National Implementation for Prepared Response.

In Glendale, maps and data for 20 of the 50 schools from five school districts within the city's borders have been collected. The next round of mapping will take place in July.

When Glendale police officers arrived on a crisis call at Pioneer Elementary School two years ago, they could have used a map of the school grounds. They knew a student, Sean Botkin, then 14, was holding a class hostage. But some had never been on the school's campus.

"They knew what room he (Botkin) was in, but they didn't have information on the nearby rooms," said Brian Wilkins, a Glendale police spokesman.

In that case, all of the hostages were released unharmed. Robert Dodd, principal of Desert Heights Elementary School, a charter school at 5821 W. Beverly Lane, said that children and teachers at his school had done their fire drills and that officials had kept copies of an emergency evacuation plan. Officials responding to any calls on school grounds will have a full view of the exterior and interior of the school before they set foot on campus, Dodd said.

Information is available at www.preparedresponse.com.