THE Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management (ODPEM) has completed the development of a computerised message handling system. The system is expected to significantly reduce delays in processing emergency messages that come into the national emergency operations centre in the event of a disaster.

The electronic message handling system is expected to make transmittal and tracking easier. It is generated in 'real time' and reports can be easily verified. The previous message handling system was a manual one, time- consuming, and often resulted in message forms being misplaced. While the manual system will still be used as a backup, it will be complemented by the new electronic system.

The new system is capable of generating reports from the data stored in its database. Once generated, the contents of each report can be queried to generate a variety of reports under subject areas, such as: areas flooded, type of event, situation etc.

The message handling system is expected to work when all, or parts, of the island experience a disaster event -- natural or otherwise -- resulting in ODPEM's National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) becoming operational.

When members of the public make contact with the ODPEM offices to report incidents in which assistance from one or more of the disaster relief agencies is required, correspondence from the public is recorded internally, as messages. Messages might be transmitted through telephone, CB radio, fax, electronic mail and by any other means of reporting an incident.

Individual message loggers then record them directly on computers in the electronic message handling system (EMHS). The messages are then processed and passed to the respective response teams and all actions recorded electronically. The conduct of the response efforts is entered as data and logged.

After saving a message, the system will automatically send an e-mail notification to any of the response agencies to which action applies, providing information on the message and the action request. A URL link will be included in the e-mail which, when clicked, navigates the agency representative to ODPEM's server on the Internet. From here the representative will have the ability to interact with the request and provide a response when the task is completed.

At a meeting at ODPEM's office last month, the primary response agencies were briefed on how the system works, as well as their roles and functions. The participating agencies included the National Water Commission, the Jamaica Fire Brigade, the Ministry of Health, Jamaica Defence Force, the Jamaica Public Service, the Jamaica Constabulary Force and the National Works Agency.

Follow-up training will take place shortly.

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