CNN iReport

York University, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, has a sim in Second Life, the York University Virtual Disaster and Emergency (DEM) Lab. I recently met with Dr. Ali Asgary (SL name YorkDEM Ansar), the sim creator, to learn about the facility.  Dr. Asgary is an Associate Professor of Emergency Management at York University. He uses the sim to simulate disaster and emergency situations, one of which I was able to observe.

York University is the only university in Canada to offer both undergraduate and graduate emergency management programs. They also offer the undergraduate program in distance education.  Dr. Asgary said that “It was always a challenge to have emergency management practices and exercises with distance education students, they either had to come to the university or just read the materials without any hands on till I learned about second life capabilities about two years ago. Soon after they added the voice chat to it. I found it to be a good tool and way to engage distance education students in an actual emergency exercise.”

The first exercise took place in the summer of 2008. Dr. Asgary said “we duplicated a scenario that had been used by emergency management Ontario. That was a table top exercise.” He explained “We have several types of emergency exercises. Table top exercises are those that we seat around a conference table and discuss what needs to be done at each stage of the emergency... table top exercises do not have any operational or action items. They are discussion based mainly”.

After giving me this background information, Dr. Asgary took me on a tour of the sim. We visited the Virtual Emergency Operations Center (VEOC) which is designed to replicate RL Emergency Operations Centers.  Dr. Asgary explained that “every city, state and county has an emergency operation centre where during an emergency is used by top emergency decision makers”. These people include amongst others the mayor, fire chief, police chief, and EMS personnel. When an emergency situation occurs, these individuals go to the Emergency Operation Center, where they can get information and then make decisions as to how to respond to the emergency. As in a real Emergency Operations Center, the VEOC includes a conference room as well as video and image displays. Those involved in the emergency sit around the table, and observers can sit around them.  According to Dr. Asgary “it (VEOC) creates an environment similar to real emergency operations centre for students and those who participate in the exercise”. The room also has a polling station so that Dr. Asgary is able to receive feedback from the participants in the exercise.

After the initial exercise with his students in 2008 Dr. Asgary decided to run an exercise with real emergency managers.  He sent invitations to members of the International Association of Emergency Managers and ran the first international exercise, a simulated pandemic, on May 5 and 7, 2009.

Many of those who have participated in the exercises are new to Second Life. Dr. Asgary remarked  that for the most part participants have not had difficulty in getting used to Second Life. There have been some technical problems, mostly related to the use of voice, and there was also a region restart during one exercise, but on the whole things have gone smoothly. An Orientation Plaza is available in the sim, where new avatars can go to master the daily activities of Second Life, such as walking, talking and flying.

The exercise that I observed took place on Oct. 28, 2009, and was a simulated school shooting.  It took about two and a half hours altogether.  The scenario had been provided to the participants ahead of time. Each person had a different role, for instance Police Chief, teacher, school principal, student or reporter. A high school (Second Life City High) was built for the purpose of the exercise. Before the actual event began everyone met in an area facing the school, where Dr. Asgary welcomed everyone and explained how the exercise would work. After this participants introduced themselves briefly and then the exercise began. It should be noted that the participants were an international group, including people from the United States, Canada, Europe and South America. Once the exercise, which was the shooting and a press conference , participants went to the VEOC building to discuss what had happened and how they reacted.

The shooting itself took place over approximately 40 minutes. Students began arriving at the school around 8 a.m. At 8:03 the shooter entered the building, first going into the meeting area/cafeteria and then making his way into a class room. The teacher in the classroom tried to lock the door against him but was unable, so she then instructed her class to get down on the floor. Other classroom doors were closed and 911 was called. The shooter left the classroom and went up onto the second floor. During this time emergency vehicles arrived and police entered the school, going from room to room looking for the shooter or shooters (because at this point they did not know how many there were).  The shooter was found dead on the second floor of the school and victims were removed by emergency personnel. Afterwards a press conference was held.

Participants then met up in the VEOC and many questions were discussed. These included how to handle the media, what to do with parents who arrive at the school after hearing about the shooting, how to decide when the school should reopen, and what kind of measures should be used to help all those involved in the incident.

Since Second Life is an immersive environment.  Those involved in such exercises as this are able to at least get a taste of what such an event can be like and how they can prepare themselves for such occurrences.  It is also a relatively inexpensive and efficient means of bringing together individuals and as such is a learning tool that may become very valuable in the future.

1. Introduction

2. Agenda for exercise

3. Meeting before event takes place

4. The school while students are arriving

5. Shooter in the classroom

6. Emergency personnel in classroom

7 Emergency vehicles outside school

8. Meeting in the Virtual Emergency Operations Center

9. Group photo of participants