Orange County NC Website
Browse       Search
information. Emergency Management will soon be integrating the Geographical <br />Information System into its E911 system. Having information available about <br />water sources, special hazards, and utility coverage areas gives Emergency <br />Management and the fire departments the ability to act quickly and with greater <br />efficiency to more situations. The system could pinpoint the closest water source. <br />It could speed up the time to dispatching utility workers to a scene. It allows <br />precise directions to be given to responding parties. <br />Another advantage to the GIS/E911 integration is the ability for the Land <br />Records office to print current maps of the district out for the fire departments. <br />Emergency Management has defined a grid system. Once the process is <br />completed, firefighters dispatched to a scene will have grid books that have up to <br />the date maps including any new subdivisions. Once the dispatcher calls out the <br />grid, the firefighters can look at the map in the grid book and see where the <br />location is, and also see other resources (such as water) and where they are in <br />relation to the scene. <br />One of our firefighters personally purchased the software program (about $ <br />1200) to gather the information about our district. This is information that requires <br />close personal knowledge about an area that only firefighters have. The time and <br />effort to gather this information is volunteered by the team we have working on <br />the insurance upgrade. The Land Records office has been most enthusiastic <br />about placing the data into the GIS database. They are willing to print the maps, <br />but correctly acknowledge that to do so for the entire county on biannual basis <br />does require some time. We asked Emergency Management if they could' <br />purchase one copy of this program that could be used by volunteers who would <br />gather this critical information. The cost of the program ($ 1200) plus the cost of <br />a second program that can measure distances on a map need for insurance <br />rating purposes (an additional $ 1200) was apparently enough that no action was <br />taken, so one of our firefighters purchased the program. <br />We would ask that the commissioners realize both the value of this <br />information and the value of the volunteered time to obtain it. It would be nice if <br />there was coordinated effort between the Fire Departments, Emergency <br />Management, and the Land Records of to work on this problem and allocate <br />the resources to solve it. It must be cheaper for the county if the labor is <br />volunteer and one of the above agencies incur the one time expense of the <br />software then it is to hire the people, who would not have the unique local <br />knowledge, to gather the data. Again we see a'great value for the county <br />financially and a great benefit to the citizens operationally. <br />Our department, like many rural departments, is seeing more and more of <br />its members placed in full time positions with municipal departments in Chapel Hill <br />and Carrboro. Training for many of the departments used the Chapel Hill <br />facilities. We also used an area Chapel Hill has for the annual testing of our <br />pumpers. Chapel Hill is requesting that we pay for the use of these facilities. It <br />would be nice if the commissioners could facilitate a solution for these common <br />resources. This could be done by working with Chapel Hill, or by having Orange <br />County Emergency Management work towards a county testing and training <br />