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Contact:
Peter Anderson, 604.291.4921; peter_anderson@sfu.ca
Marianne Meadahl, Media & PR 604.291.4323

A specialized vehicle designed at SFU to deliver emergency communication systems directly to disaster sites will be ready to go this fall.

Its first test came in mid-August, when communication professor Peter Anderson drove it to the forest fire-threatened Boston Bar area. However he returned to the Lower Mainland just a few days later after the weather turned damp, causing the situation to improve. "There were residents on evacuation alert due to the nearby forest fires and, for a time, the situation appeared critical," he says. "It was good news when things changed."

The journey did provide the researchers who designed the advanced mobile emergency communications vehicle, referred to as the AMEC prototype, with a chance to test some of its versatile capabilities in a real emergency. The final stage of work on the vehicle should be completed by October.

“During the recent call-out we were able to quickly provide critical communications support for the BC Provincial Emergency Program and Office of the Fire Commissioner and, if required, would have provided the communications support for a community emergency operations centre that was being established in Boston Bar," says Anderson, who teaches a course on mitigating disasters. An expert in emergency communication, he spent much of last summer working behind the scenes in BC's fire-stricken Interior and assessing the province's emergency communication needs. Since last summer he and SFU colleague Stephen Braham have been involved in designing and planning the prototype.

The specialized, self-contained vehicle can provide advanced communication systems to both urban and remote locations that have been damaged by natural disasters. It will also enable researchers to test a variety of communication technologies in extreme and remote environments.

Equipped with its own satellite dish, wireless internet and phone capabilities, the vehicle can also vertically extend a remote camera some 30 feet in the air to capture images that might indicate fire damage or direction or other information critical to hazard sites.

Western Economic Diversification Canada is providing $450,000 toward the project. The funding was announced in July by Stephen Owen, Minister of Western Economic Diversification and Minister of State, at an international conference on earthquake engineering in Vancouver.

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Websites:
Western Economic Diversification Canada: www.wd.gc.ca/default_e.asp
BC Provincial Emeregency Program: www.pep.bc.ca/