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Buffalo Computer Graphics (BCG), the company responsible for developing the DisasterLAN^TM incident management system used in the State of New York, will be participating in the state's Empire 09 emergency response exercise in the Capital Region. The exercise will take place in the Albany, NY area June 2-4, 2009, and is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy / National Nuclear Security Administration and is hosted by New York State through the NYS Disaster Preparedness Commission. More than 550 first responders from State, Federal and Local governments, and hospital/health-care workers from over 30 Federal, New York State and local agencies in Albany and Rensselaer counties will participate in an intensive, three-day emergency response exercise. Empire 09 is designed to evaluate the joint Federal, State, and Local response and management of a Radiological Dispersal Device - RDD or commonly referred to as a "dirty bomb" - incident in an urban environment. 

Five members of BCG's staff will be on-site in Albany to assist in the exercise response activities from the New York State Emergency Management Office. This exercise will enable all participants to practice coordinating activities for prevention and disaster response in dealing with a radiological disaster. The DisasterLAN system is ideally suited to facilitate the tracking and response to the events in the exercise. 

DisasterLAN is a state of the art incident management system that was designed by incident managers to meet the diverse needs of the emergency management community. It is a web-based system that can be deployed as a mobile configuration, a fixed site 24/7 enterprise configuration, or a remotely managed system operating over the Internet. It is a tool for effectively managing pre-planning activities, the ongoing events that occur during a crisis, and incident follow up tasks. DisasterLAN is currently in use in the emergency operation centers for the States of New York, Minnesota, Vermont, the NYS National Guard, various counties in New York State, as well as the Island of Guam.