NOAA
2007-027 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Ben Sherman 5/4/07 |
NOAA
News Releases 2007 NOAA Home Page NOAA Office of Communications |
A new online tool for first responders to hazardous chemical accidents has been released by NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration. The new Web site, CAMEO Chemicals, http://cameochemicals.noaa.gov, is the latest component of NOAA’s popular CAMEO (Computer-Aided Management of Emergency Operations) software suite, and the first to be available for use online. Over the past two decades, the CAMEO suite has brought first responders from an era in which they gleaned emergency response information from maps and reference books spread out on the hoods of their trucks to a time when up-to-date, comprehensive information on chemical plumes, toxicity risks, and susceptibility of chemical mixtures to burn or explode can be displayed with a few strokes on a computer keyboard. "CAMEO is the most widely used chemical response software in the world," said Capt. Ken Barton, acting director of NOAA's Office of Response and Restoration. "With CAMEO Chemicals, we've responded to user requests to improve access and ease of use of this vital information. While the Web site is newly operational it has already been placed in service with a major chemical release on the Mississippi River and a dangerous train derailment in New York.” CAMEO Chemicals is an online, easy-to-use version of the most popular components of CAMEO, the chemical database and the reactivity prediction tool. Key features include:
CAMEO Chemicals was developed by NOAA in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Coast Guard. The Web site is maintained by NOAA’s Office of Response and Restoration, a program of the National Ocean Service. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, is celebrating 200 years of science and service to the nation. From the establishment of the Survey of the Coast in 1807 by Thomas Jefferson to the formation of the Weather Bureau and the Commission of Fish and Fisheries in the 1870s, much of America's scientific heritage is rooted in NOAA. NOAA is dedicated to enhancing economic security and national safety through the prediction and research of weather and climate-related events and information service delivery for transportation, and by providing environmental stewardship of our nation's coastal and marine resources. Through the emerging Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), NOAA is working with its federal partners, more than 60 countries and the European Commission to develop a global monitoring network that is as integrated as the planet it observes, predicts and protects. On the Web NOAA: http://www.noaa.gov National Ocean Service: http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/ CAMEO Chemicals: http://cameochemicals.noaa.gov/ CAMEO Web site: http://www.epa.gov/ceppo/cameo/ NOAA’s
CAMEO information online: http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/cameo/cameo.html |