The EMADVANTAGE architecture provides the user with the following major capabilities and/or activity:

• Activity Descriptions
• Hazard Modeling
• Threat and Risk Identification
• Protective Action Decisions
• Electronic Plan Generation/Execution
• EOC Activation/Emergency Declaration
• Community Profile
• Evacuation Modeling
• Facility/Resource Management
• Activity Tracking, Reporting and Status Boards
• Incident Tracking

The EMADVANTAGE framework allows EOC personnel to access information and provide operational decisions for each major activity. These capabilities allow an emergency operations center (EOC) to plan for, perform daily operations, and respond to potential emergencies. They also allow multiple EOC's to better coordinate and communicate between themselves during real-world operations, training, or exercises.

Prevention, Preparedness and Response Management / Hazardous Mitigation
The EMADVANTAGE architecture was developed to support all phases of emergency management. The architecture supports a planning component that allows users to develop 'what-if' scenarios based upon activities and their potential threat and risk. Community conditions are used to establish viable protective action decisions. The conditions, zones at risk, and desired protective action decisions are used to construct an operational response plan. Electronic plans contain emergency management related tasks. These tasks include the action, responsible emergency support function, required resources, location of the task, etc. These scenarios are stored outside of the daily operations database so they can remain static and be reviewed as needed in the future. During daily operations actual community conditions and hazards are used to identify threatened areas and communities at risk. The hazard, community conditions and impacted zones are then used to select the closest response plan to be implemented. EMADVANTAGE provides task execution, incident tracking, and other status boards reports to assist in implementing the desired actions. General Hazard Support
The EMADVANTAGE architecture supports general hazards. There are emergency management functions that are common to all hazards. An EOC uses the same pool of resources, personnel, sirens, traffic control points, shelters, etc., to manage different hazards. EMADVANTAGE has been constructed to allow an EOC to identify the context of the hazard Ð the protective action decisions associated with the hazard, the response zones associated with the hazard, and the community conditions that require the development or selection of a unique response plan. EMADVANTAGE is unique in that it allows a single EOC to simultaneously work multiple hazards and their associated response plans in a coordinated manner.

Preparedness and Response
The ability to transition between preparedness and response is a key feature of the EMADVANTAGE architecture. The heart of this capability is the generation, management and application of electronic plans. By using the same system to identify and develop needed plans and perform daily operations and response provides a transition from planning to response that is difficult to achieve with current software products. By expanding this concept to support multiple EOC's the ability to support preparedness and response can be expanded from a single EOC paradigm to support multiple EOC's across multiple jurisdictions.

Activity Descriptions
Activity descriptions are user defined status boards that allow a site to provide background information about the world around the EOC. This information can be production activities, weather, or any other information that the site feels may have an impact on their ability to respond to an emergency. The EMADVANTAGE architecture allows a knowledgeable user to construct a status board. A status board is a spreadsheet or form that contains headers and information organized by the user Ð think of a 'super' spreadsheet. It is like a spreadsheet in that the user can identify the title, the headers, and the type of information contained in the spreadsheet. The spreadsheet becomes 'super' because it can:

• support multiple user concurrently,
• be shared between EOC's,
• can be as open as a view-only bulletin board or limited to only a few privileged users.
• contain location information that directly links to a GIS map
• automatically update and present information as decisions are made in an EOC
• contain links to URL's or other documents and applications.

Hazard and Evacuation Modeling
The EMADVANTAGE architecture was designed to support hazard modeling. The architecture was created to integrate a user-specified model with FEMIS-like user interfaces, GIS displays, as well as functions to assist in making protective action decision based on the time a potential hazard may impact a response zone or designated facility. An example of how site defined models may be integrated into EMADVANTAGE is provided in Figures A.1 and A.2.

In order to integrate a new model into EMADVANTAGE Battelle will work with the client to identify the model, the user-oriented interface needed to provide inputs, how the model will graphically and textually display results, and finally how the model will be used in the client's decision making process.

The general hazard component of EMADVANTAGE allows a user to 'loosely-couple' a model with the EMADVANTAGE architecture. This is done by a direct link to the model from the EMADVANTAGE interface.

Additionally, the EMADVANTAGE architecture supports evacuation modeling software. This includes an interface for defining a traffic network, designating traffic flow, establishing evacuation routes, and simulating evacuation activities. Figure A.3 shows an example screen for the evacuation modeling capability.

Risk Identification and Protective Action Decisions
As a result of the modeling integration, EMADVANTAGE can assist the user in identifying the zones and facilities that are at risk. Risk identification also includes identifying sirens, traffic control points and other key elements of emergency management that are in close proximity to the hazard that will be involved in mitigating the hazard. A sample of emergency planning zones impacted by a chemical hazard is seen in Figure A.4.

Protective action decisions are made by proximity to the hazard. They can also be based on impact time. Site and community conditions can also be factored into the decision making process.

The general hazard component of EMADVANTAGE allows a site to establish the protective action zones associated with each specific hazard. For example, this will allow decisions about fires, traffic accidents, and explosions to be made at the 'township' level while decisions about earthquakes, floods, and typhoons may be at a 'county' or regional level.

Electronic Plan Generation / Execution
Electronic plans are selected based upon the protective action decisions and the community conditions. The plan contains the activities and tasks that need to be performed to complete the protective action decisions. A task within the electronic plan contains general information about who in the EOC is responsible for the task, what actions need to be done, what resources are needed to complete the tasks, etc. The task can also identify the geographical location where the task is to be performed as well as the people to contact outside of the EOC. A log can be made when each task is started and completed for later review. Tasks within a plan can be given desired start and finish times. When a task is executed the actual start and actual finish times are kept for later review. Many people can view and work an electronic plan at the same time. Figure A.5 shows an example of an electronic plan as well as some of the information that can be linked to a task.

EOC Activation / Emergency Declaration
EMADVANTAGE will allow an authorized user to make an emergency declaration. This is an electronic notification to the EOC and other users outside of the EOC that an emergency has occurred. This notification is automatically sent to other users of the EMADVANTAGE system. Depending on how a site operates this function can be used as an initial warning system for other EOC's and personnel at the site. A sample of the emergency declaration screens for FEMIS are provided in Figure A.6.

The General Hazard component of EMADVANTAGE allows the EOC / site to establish a hazard specific emergency declaration. Information about the emergency is contained in a site defined status board. The notification of an emergency can be limited to a single hazard within an EOC or across all hazards and EOC's at a site. This ability to do multi-hazard, multi-site emergency declaration is unique to the EMADVANTAGE architecture.

Facility/Resource Management
EMADVANTAGE provides the capability to develop, manage, and access information about the facilities, resources, and personnel needed to support a site's emergency management activities. This will allow emergency managers to identify those agencies, departments, and personnel involved in emergency management at the site as well as in the local community. It also allows the emergency managers to track facilities and resources that are of specific interest to the EOC. The information management components of EMADVANTAGE include but are not limited to:

• Agencies involved in emergency management
• Departments involved in emergency management
• Personnel that are responsible for manning the EOC
• Personnel that are responsible for responding to a specific hazard
• Personnel that reside outside of the EOC that provide assistance to the general public during an emergency such as fire, police, and doctors
• People in the community that provide resources
• Facilities that may be affected by the hazard
• Facilities for which special protective actions are needed such as hospitals or schools
• Facilities that are involved in providing emergency management support
• Facilities that are involved in providing resources
• Facilities that are involved in providing shelter to the community
• Traffic Control Points to support evacuation
• Sirens to support public alert and notification
• Meteorological towers to provide real time weather information

A key component of the EMADVANTAGE architecture is to allow a user to quickly get needed information about a facility, traffic control point, siren or other element of emergency management. This includes the access and display of information directly from the geographic information system. Figure A.7 is an example of a user getting information about a facility that is affected by a chemical plume.

Activity Tracking, Reporting and Status Boards
The premise of EMADVANTAGE is to provide both the emergency manager and responder with quick access to information. This includes quick access to information about the emergency, the geographic area at risk, the plan being implemented, the shelters being activated, as well as the people and materials being used to respond to the emergency. To provide such information EMADVANTAGE provides predefined status boards and reports as well as single click access to status maps and displays. The list of predefined status boards and maps include, but are not limited to:

Emergency Declaration and Status Electronic Plan status board Casualty Status Evacuees Registration and Reunification Shelter Activation Meteorological and weather status Protective action decisions Threat and Risk Area reports Current status of other EOC's Risk and Threatened area displays Chemical plume displays Protective action decision displays

Figures A.8 and A.9 provide samples of the evacuee registration status board and the shelter activation status board.

Additionally EMADVANTAGE allows site administrators to develop their own status board and reports. This capability has been used extensively at operational sites and is one of the greatest strengths of the system. User defined status boards can contain text, numbers, locations, dates, and other types of information that are named and organized by the user. This information can be entered and shared between users as well as between emergency operations centers. This capability allows a site to tailor EMADVANTAGE to fit their specific needs.

Incident Tracking
The EMADVANTAGE architecture provides an incident tracking capability. While this capability has been tailored to meet the needs of the FEMIS project the much of the information is directly applicable to other hazards. One key component to the EMADVANTAGE incident tracking system is that information about a specific incident can be quickly shared across all EOC's. This allows information about an incident to be easily communicated without the originating EOC losing control. An example of the EMADVANTAGE incident tracking form is presented in figure A.10.

SUMMARY
The EMADVANTAGE architecture and supporting software provided by Battelle PNNL is directly applicable to the other emergency management communities. It is applicable in three ways:

1. EMADVANTAGE can be used as a general hazard system to assist in identifying and communicating emergency management decisions and information across one or more emergency operation centers.
2. EMADVANTAGE can be used as an initial platform to begin the development of a tailored, site-specific emergency management system. Such a system would include the integration of site-specific models and user interface screens directed to the specific needs of an EOC or site. This development and / or integration effort would be applicable to all EOC's involved in the endevour.
3. EMADVANTAGE can be used as a prototype to review the information, decisions, activities, and capabilities desired by a site-specific emergency management system. Because EMADVANTAGE is an operational system, with real-world users, there are many capabilities and issues that have already been addressed by this architecture. Because the general hazard component of the EMADVANTAGE architecture can support user defined hazards, it would be an effective starting point to determine what site-specific capabilities are needed. The software, coupled with Battelle's knowledge of emergency management and information technology, can be a significant asset in the effort of providing automation support for emergency management.