FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - Tuesday, August 3, 2004

Pierce County and Prepared Response Renew Commitment to School Safety

TACOMA— August 3, 2004 - Pierce County and Prepared Response, Inc. today announced a coordinated plan to promote and advance school safety in the State of Washington and across the United States with Rapid Responder. Rapid Responder is designed to provide improved situational awareness information for emergency responders with facility floor plans, site maps, hazardous material locations, utility control locations, tactical and evacuation plans and key facility personnel information. Pierce County and Prepared Response share a commitment to school safety and a belief that software, databases and communication systems can give police, fire and other first responders critical access to facilities information required for effective emergency response.

"Rapid Responder is an important tool for increasing public safety and emergency preparedness," said Jim Finnell, CEO of Prepared Response. "Rapid Responder was successfully put to use in a September 2003 school shooting incident at Lewis and Clark High School in Spokane, Washington. Within minutes of receiving the first 911 call, police accessed Rapid Responder system with stored aerial photographs of the school along with detailed floor plans of the campus that included details on entrances and exits, utility shut-off locations and evacuation plans. We are excited to bring this technology to emergency responders in Washington State and to schools and emergency officials across the United States."

Implementing school safety systems requires strong collaboration among fire, law enforcement, medical personnel, emergency managers and schools to facilitate communication during an emergency. Pierce County and Prepared Resopnse have shown the benfit of this sort of collaboration and the use of this proven, life-saving technology for school safety.

"Pierce County has worked hard to provide new technology that helps emergency responders react quickly and respond intelligently in critical situations," said John Ladenburg, Pierce County Executive. "Working with Prepared Response helps us share this valuable knowledge. We're able to protect children and play a role in mitigating crisis situations at schools throughout the country."

About Rapid Responder

Rapid Responder is an interactive emergency response database system. It gives first responders directions to sites, staging areas and buildings, in addition to floor plans, site plans and both indoor and outdoor photos of each facility. It allows first responders to adequately prepare through pre-planning, actual response and recovery, providing the means to effect the highest level of organization and dissemination of all incident plans, site information and communication. For example, an incident commander and emergency communications managers can view critical site information en route to an emergency, access building safety plans specific to the crisis, create, manage and distribute incident plans.