The staff of the HOTZONE 2005 confernce announce "Despite the recent events with Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita and their continuing responses we will press on with this year's conference" so HOTZONE 2005 will be held October 13 - 16, 2005 at the Houston Marriott Westchase Hotel in Houston, Texas.

The conference committee reports that that have a fantastic conference planned for this year and we anticipate another record crowd. They advise that due to the hurricane, make your hotel reservations immediately to ensure that you get a room and that rooms are no longer available at the Marriott

The goal of HOTZONE 2005 is to train and equip local, state and federal responders for safe, coordinated and efficient response to releases of hazardous materials which threaten public health and the environment.

The target audience is local fire, police, emergency management personnel, emergency medical services, health care providers, and state and federal response personnel who participate directly in the incident command system or in its immediate support at the scene of a hazmat response or terrorist event in Federal Region 6.

The HOTZONE 2005 Committee is composed of representatives from the local, state, and federal levels of the HAZMAT response community serving Federal Region 6. It is the vision of the HOTZONE 2005 Committee to establish an annual training conference in order to continuously improve HAZMAT technical training and promote professional relationships within Region 6 as well as meet the unique needs of this region. To meet the unique needs of this region, this conference focuses on bringing together municipal and industrial fire fighters with HAZMAT responsibilities but also seeks to educate and equip other local, State, and Federal agency personnel who play an integral role in unified command at the scene.

HOTZONE 2005 is about you, the responder.