January 2015, Vol. 70, No. 1
Newsline
Emergency Response Systems For DHS, Naturals Gas Industry Under Development
The Gas Technology Institute (GTI) has been awarded a project by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to develop a Gas Situational Awareness System (GSAS) to be used for major events that require response by more than one emergency responder, utility or agency.
The system will be a data exchange methodology for critical natural gas infrastructure operators and government agencies to ensure a coordinated response. It will allow them to share information, provide situational awareness, assist with decision support during disasters and hasten recovery.
In that same timeframe, GTI and natural gas distribution system operators have been discussing a complementary system that can provide quick access to data after a disaster to drive decision making and integrate reactions. The Gas Outage Management System (GOMS) will allow utilities to identify high-risk pipe segments so that mitigation and restoration resources can be deployed to the most critical assets.
Key to the solution is digital information sharing that overcomes security concerns and interoperability limitations that can hold back the dissemination of important data. All responders must have the ability to receive data pertinent to system restoration on a real-time basis.
These parallel GSAS and GOMS systems will each have information that is useful to the other system, yet each will be independent and will not require the other system to operate.
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