BELLINGHAM, WA – March 4, 2008 – PIER Systems, Inc., leading provider of the online public information software PIER, today announced the recent purchase of 30 online PIER sites by Fort Bend County, Texas on behalf of the Houston Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) region. The technology will be used to support Houston UASI’s efforts in improving regional collaboration and communications. PIER will ultimately serve as the communications platform for the entire region, allowing multiple jurisdictions and agencies within the region to coordinate response efforts.

“Greater Houston is the nation’s sixth largest metropolitan area, consisting of several counties and more than five and a half million residents. During an emergency situation, it’s extremely important that these county governments and response agencies have a way to communicate with each other, as well as meet the demand for public information,” said Jeff Braun, Emergency Management Coordinator for Fort Bend County and Chair of the Houston Urban Area’s Regional Collaboration Committee. “In PIER, we’ve found the central communications platform that meets this need.”
 
PIER, an acronym for Public Information Emergency Response, is a fully hosted, web-based platform used for managing communications. The region’s Fort Bend County is already using their PIER site to handle communications with media, the approximately half-million residents and others, as well as for internal communications. The County now has the ability to simultaneously alert stakeholders of critical notifications via e-mail, text-messages and fax, as well as post information directly to the Web and manage incoming inquiries, all from their central PIER site. County Judge Bob Hebert has already created local interest in the system by announcing the posting of his campaign’s finance reports to the Fort Bend County PIER site.
 
“What often happens with emergency resources is that they are ignored until a disaster actually strikes, and then people are left scrambling trying to remember how to use it,” said Braun. “As Fort Bend and others continue to use PIER for their day-to-day communications, we’ll be even more prepared to use the system effectively when an emergency occurs.”
 
In addition to Fort Bend County, many other counties, cities and others in the region are anticipating the implementation of their own PIER sites, each of which will create an additional link in the region’s communications network.
 
“More and more, UASI regions are realizing their need for a solution that will allow different jurisdictions and agencies within their area to work together,” said Dr. John P. “Pat” Philbin, Senior Vice President of PIER Systems. “Houston UASI is making great steps forward in ensuring response efforts will go as smoothly as possible during an emergency in their region. Putting tools in place that will allow different groups to communicate with each other and manage the public’s request for information is critical to effectively managing an emergency response.”
 
Using PIER, the City of Houston and Harris, Fort Bend, Galveston, Brazoria and Montgomery counties, as well as others within the region, will be able to manage communications efforts from anytime and anywhere. PIER has placed all of the tools communicators need on a centralized online platform. The online functionality of PIER allows it to serve as a virtual Joint Information Center (JIC) for the entire Houston UASI region, enabling off-site key response personnel and public information officers to virtually join a traditional JIC in emergencies, even when they’re unable to be present.
 
“The recent integration between PIER and the Houston UASI region’s crisis information platform, WebEOC, is a very critical linkage,” said Terry Moore, City of Houston, Office of Emergency Management. “This link allows public information officers to access real time situational updates from any internet connection, significantly improving the delivery of emergency communications to the public.”
 
Houston UASI was one of many cities and surrounding regions throughout the nation to receive grant funding by the Homeland Security Department. Some of these funds supported the recent implementation of the region’s PIER sites. Following the events of 9/11, many major U.S. cities and their surrounding regions with exposure to natural and man-made threats have received federal funding. These funds are dispersed by the Department of Homeland Security’s Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI).
 
UASI funds are used to address homeland security needs within the region, as identified in the Urban Area Homeland Security Strategy and State Homeland Security Strategy. The use of such funds is decided upon by a committee within the Urban Area, typically made up of emergency directors, responders and elected officials, among others.
 
Now used by customers in many different sectors, the PIER system was created out of the Olympic Pipeline disaster in the northwest during the late 1990’s. The event illustrated the substantial need by communicators for a centralized platform in order to coordinate efforts and meet the demands for public information. The United States Coast Guard, BP, Shell Oil, Boeing, several university systems and local, regional and state government agencies currently use the system to manage internal and external communications.
 
About Houston UASI
Spanning five counties and exceeding $300 billion in Gross Area Product, the Houston UASI Area contains the fourth most populous city and the third most populous county in the United States. It is larger in area, economic output and population than many states and most countries. Over five million people reside in the Houston UASI Area, and an additional 36 million travel through massive transit facilities such as Bush Intercontinental Airport, the seventh busiest airport in the United States. The Area is also an international business center, including 25 foreign banks; 42 international chambers of commerce; and 86 consular offices--- the third most in the country.
 
A coalition of local governments in the Houston UASI area have developed a regional strategy to enhance the local capacity and capability to detect, prevent, mitigate against, prepare for, respond to and recover from acts of terrorism and other disasters, whether natural or manmade. The strategy has been developed by the Houston Urban Area Working Group, a multi-jurisdictional, multi-disciplined committee established to guide the efforts of individual jurisdictions and to encourage informed regional resource allocation decisions. An Executive Committee comprised of representatives from each of the four largest core jurisdictions, the City of Houston, Harris County, Fort Bend County and Montgomery County, leads the Working Group.
 
About PIER Systems, Inc.
The Public Information and Emergency Response (PIER) System is the world's first and only full spectrum on-demand communication management web-application. PIER is designed to put all critical tools needed by communicators into a single, easy-to-use communication platform, allowing communicators and an extended team to work together from anywhere at anytime to fully complete and manage a wide range of critical communication tasks. PIER is used by many of the world’s leading oil and energy companies, by major federal agencies, by leading universities, major corporations and a large number of smaller government agencies, non-profits and commercial enterprises. PIER is a product of PIER Systems, Inc. For more information, visit www.PIERSystems.com.