The Department of Energy lab and commercial partner Cadre 5 demonstrated...a portable sensor and video system operated from a small self-contained trailer that can secure a 10-square-mile area.
In the event of a dirty bomb or industrial accident, the system can combine information about winds and weather to project which way the chemical or radioactive plume is headed so populations at greatest risk can be warned and evacuated.
A prototype system, named SNAPS for Sensor Network Area Protection System, has been in operation since last year in Washington, D.C.
Federal Homeland Security grants will cover the $600,000 cost, officials said.
The Memphis system will have five gamma-ray radiation sensors, five video cameras and eight chemical sensors sniffing for such things as ammonia, cyanide and chlorine. The sensors and cameras are mounted on portable battery-powered towers and linked wirelessly.
"Obviously we can't deploy this type of technology at every site," said Capt. Dale Lane with the Shelby County Sheriff's Office. "This will be deployed for specific threats or to certain venues or around large crowds.
Memphis, Tennessee... has been at the top of the national homeland security watch list for some time because of the large chemical loading and transfer operations at the Port of Memphis on the Mississippi River.
"A terrorist doesn't need a bomb" to wreak havoc in Memphis, (Rich) Stouder (director of technology development and deployment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory) said. "He doesn't need anything but a .30-06 (shotgun) and he can create a weapon of mass destruction."
The port already has five permanently installed sensors and video systems. The mobile detectors will link into that system, giving downtown emergency personnel an integrated picture for directing their response.
We think that every city of any size should have one of these things," said Steve Hicks, Cadre5 president and CEO. "So we are going to start marketing it and promoting it that way."
Press release | Business Week
~The video cameras make sense for crowd control and in the event of a disaster would allow first responders from a safe distance to see how many bodies are laying around.
However, I'm don't understand the advantage of a portable system with gamma and chemical sensors.
One would think Memphis, given its vulnerablity to shot gun blasts, would already have chemical "sniffers" permanently in place all over the city to guage which way their industries' toxic winds are blowing. As for gamma sensors, now that everybody knows about 'dirty bombs', how could a mayor worthy of his office not insist that his city be protected 24/7 with radiation detectors?
It looks like Cadre5 is taking advantage of Homeland Security's inability to fund the infrastructure necessary for a coordinated anti-terrorism response.
As for Cadre5's 'small self-contained trailer', who volunteers to sit inside at ground zero and monitor these systems? Is the occupant of the trailer protected from gamma radiation by lead-lined walls, with her own hazmat suit and air supply in case of a chemical leak or attack? Is he or she armed and trained to resist intruders? Or is the trailer nothing but equipment, with the human operators miles away?
Posted by Stubbornson at February 28, 2007 06:01 AM