College helps make computer maps of St. Louis schools

ST. LOUIS -- Using the 1999 carnage at Columbine High School as a lesson, newly developed computer software could allow emergency workers to take virtual tours of a St. Louis school to hasten response if violence strikes.

Working with St. Louis police and school administrators, a St. Louis University lab has created CD-ROMs showing 360-degree panoramic views of every classroom, cafeteria, gym and office in two of the city's largest high schools.

The discs also feature satellite images and aerial photographs of the buildings' exteriors and neighborhoods to show routes in and out of the schools, and possible evacuation and staging areas.

The ambitious goal: develop similar software for as many as 170 St. Louis-area schools, allowing emergency responders to take an immediate, interactive tour of any building with a few clicks of a computer keyboard or a mouse.

High-definition game

Eventual applications could include other public buildings, which in post-Sept. 11 America have come under heightened security scrutiny nationwide.

"A good analogy is a high-definition computer game, where you can virtually walk through space," said Jim Gilsinan, dean of Saint Louis University's College of Public Service, which includes the Geographic Information Systems lab developing the software.

Launchable from any computer, the so-called Crisis Intervention Response Application seeks to bolster safety of emergency crews, give an on-the-spot picture of how to best approach a violent setting and offer schematics of nearby neighborhoods.

With software potentially more helpful than conventional diagrams, "the bottom line is it increases the efficiency and effectiveness of an emergency crew's ability to respond," Gilsinan said.

Such technology is long overdue, said Harold Brewer of the St. Louis school board.

"If something terrible were to happen, knowing the nuances of these old buildings -- the nooks and crannies -- might be valuable," including showing where children might hide to escape flames and smoke, said Brewster, the board's vice president.

"But I still would hope it would never have to be used."

Computers on fire trucks

For local firefighters, applications for now might be limited by the lack of computers on fire trucks, though "we're going to have it," fire chief Sherman George said.

"We do have some knowledge of buildings, but memories often aren't as clear as what you can get from a computer screen," he said. "This would be a very important tool" in giving firefighters visuals of a building's entry points and water sources.

In creating the CD-ROMs of Soldan International Studies and Beaumont high schools, the college students and staff took panoramic photographs of each room, then combined them with blueprints of each school's layout, aerial photos and satellite images.

Gilsinan said the work was being done in stages under a contract with St. Louis Public Schools. The college may eventually spin off the technology to another vendor if the district wants computerized mapping of each school, given that "this is a very labor-intensive kind of activity," he said.

The contract's terms were not immediately available.

Work on mapping two other local high schools is under way this summer, motivated by "just a general concern about increasing safety," Gilsinan said.

Other school districts nationwide have taken similar steps since April 20, 1999, when two teenage gunmen fatally shot 12 classmates and a teacher at Columbine near Littleton, Colo., before killing themselves. Police and firefighters there have said uncertainty about Columbine's layout added to confusion when they responded to the nation's deadliest school shooting.

Testing software in West

Under a pilot program unveiled last year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency planned to lead testing across several Western communities of such software.

Closer to home, Gilsinan said that while Columbine -- and the terrorist attacks -- underscored the need for such a system, he believes it would have been developed anyway. "Those two events just accelerated it," he said.