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7/7/2010 2:16:00 PM
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THE OWNER of Innovative Data
Systems Inc., Warrensburg, Donald Slone, calls up his company’s Web site. J.C. VENTIMIGLIA/Star-Journal
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If disaster strikes, Warrensburg company offers program to help find people with
special needs
Warrensburg - After a tornado
or earthquake, special needs people may not be able to crawl out of demolished houses
or heard if they call for help.
Enter Donald Slone, 60, and his company, Innovative Data Systems Inc., Warrensburg.
Slone's company created the Innovative Disaster Evacuation Planning computer program,
InDEP.
"It's specifically a special needs registry," Slone said. "It allows county emergency
management offices to integrate the special needs information in the community into
an emergency response tool."
Innovative Data Systems offers the registry and works in partnership with Pathfinder
Task Force, a group that has responded to Hurricanes Ike and Gus, and the Haiti
earthquake Jan. 13.
"This is where the first responders come in. The first responders use the Pathfinder,"
Slone said Tuesday while visiting The Star-Journal, 135 E. Market St., Warrensburg.
The Innovative Disaster Evacuation Planning program tells emergency responders where
to find special needs residents.
"It's the tool for the county to collect the names for special needs people in the
community who would not be able to evacuate themselves in the event of an emergency,
such as a tornado, ice storm or earthquakes," Slone said.
Audrain County and St. Louis use the program, and Cole County just made the purchase.
The program costs about $2,000 annually and there is a $125 set-up fee, he said.
"It's been used in the city of St. Louis, to respond to a major summer storm with
citywide power outage in 100-degree heat index to locate special needs folks needing
cooling, oxygen, dialysis and other special service," Slone said.
In addition to InDEP, Slone's company fills another niche to serve the special needs
community.
"We do all of the client-service tracking software for all of the area agencies
on aging in Missouri and Illinois. The InDEP program was an offshoot of this area
aging program," he said.
Emergency services providers statewide will see the program in action in August
at a training event in Springfield. One of the training exercises will use the program.
"It will demonstrate using InDEP, that special needs people can be located and responded
to in a matter of hours instead of days, which would correspond to saving lives
in the event of a disaster," Slone said. "Once they see the power of the system
we expect there will be a greater demand."
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