Emergency Impact Simulator
Calling all Homeland Security students….
I need your help. I came across what seems to be, a very cool site. At www.clearimpact.com you can run simulations of possible disasters that could happen in your area. Basically, you choose your disaster of choice and then select a location on the map. From there, the site computes results based on what “could happen.”
Here is the problem, I ran a train derailment from Dekalb and got results immediately. But, I don’t understand the results. Can anyone help?
If you go to the site, you’ll notice a blog in the upper right-hand corner. I blogged the creators of the site for some help. Hopefully I’ll get feedback soon. If the feedback is good, I think this would be a great addition to our Homeland security site.
Check that out at www.niu.edu/homelandsecurity.
Help an English major out and explain this site to me!!
Amanda
May 16th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Ok…I got a response from clearimpact.com. Here is what they said:
“The train derailment scenario predicts what could happen when a rail car full of Sulfuric Acid is released to the environment. When that occurs, chemic vapour due to evaporation will become airborne. The predicted result you are looking at in cleerimpact.com shows where and how much airborne vaopur after a period of 1 hour given the observed weather conditions at the nearest airport and chemical properties of sulfuric acid. There is also a certain amount of vapour that will fall to the ground. The airborne and ground zones are color coded to represent relative concentrations (how much vapour in the air or on the ground). For further explanation, you can send an e-mail through the contact link at http://www.cleerimpact.com.”
So that helps. I think you should check this out–it is very easy to use and pretty fun to “play” with.
Happy simulating!!
Amanda