Emergency Preparedness Webinar Focuses On Recent Hurricanes

Emergency professionals on the ground during Katrina and Rita share their experiences to provide crisis and EH&S professionals insight on expanding risk management capabilities

TEMPE, Ariz. - October 14, 2005 - Crisis Managers and Environmental, Health & Safety (EH&S) professionals will have an opportunity to gain insight on disaster response in an upcoming webinar that will feature experts who traveled to Mississippi to help support emergency efforts for hurricanes Katrina and Rita, ESS announced today.

The free ESS-sponsored webinar, entitled, "Real Life Lessons from America's Hurricane Response: 10 Steps to All-Hazard Readiness," is scheduled for noon EDT on October 19th. It will be presented by John Ketcham, Senior EH&S and Crisis Consultant, ESS; Jamie Imus, Product Development Manager, PIER Systems (formerly Audiencecentral); and John Gargett, Product Manager for Emergency Response, ESS.

Ketcham was dispatched to the Mississippi Department of Health's emergency operations center in Jackson shortly after Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast. Gargett has traveled worldwide to support emergency response efforts. PIER Systems' control center software is being used to help authorities coordinate and manage operations.

"With the hurricanes and continued threats of other events, such as terrorist acts, many organizations are looking to strengthen their emergency response capabilities," Ketcham said "We hope to use our experiences with Katrina and Rita to help these organizations gain some insight on new ways to protect their businesses."

Issues to be discussed during the webinar including the following:

Ensuring the safety of employees, their families, customers, and local communities
Improving and documenting communications with emergency teams, agencies and the media
Managing deployment of emergency resources and critical tasking assignments/completion
Building stakeholder confidence through consistent inquiry response and messages

About ESS
ESS is the leading provider of Operational Risk Management software and services for Environmental, Health and Safety (EH&S) and Crisis Management. The company has provided more than 35,000 Compliance Suite™ and Essential Suite™ software licenses to businesses, government agencies and other organizations worldwide. For more information, visit www.ess-home.com.

About PIER Systems
PIER Systems provides software and services to help organizations manage public affairs and crisis communications. The company's product, PIER (Public Information and Emergency Response), is a web-based system designed to help communications professionals and senior management communicate faster, more efficiently and more consistently. For more information, visit www.piersystems.com.