It's not nice to fool Mother Nature, but we should make exceptions when a fire department and its city are hit with a decade full of tornadoes, hurricanes and more. Since 1995, the city of Wilson in eastern North Carolina has seen a tornado strike an occupied school, a winter storm create long-term power outages and five major hurricanes: Bonnie, Dennis, Fran, Floyd and Isabel.

In September 1996 Fran created significant destruction by felling trees, which damaged structures and limited access throughout the city. Hurricane Floyd struck on Sept. 16, 1999, bringing a different test to our community — flooding that exceeded the 500-year flood criteria.

New response arsenal

When Hurricane Isabel hit on Sept. 18, we had a new tool with which to respond: geographic information systems. Wilson Fire/Rescue Services had been experimenting with GIS for a few years as a “poster fire department” for the Commission on Fire Accreditation International, managing and tracking a variety of data critical to operations. The city of Wilson used GIS in several new ways before and during the storm:

• Pre-incident analysis of flood-prone areas

  GIS mapping of flood-prone areas enabled us to prepare to block streets and to reposition resources in areas that might have no access or limited access in flooding conditions.

• Outage tracking

  GIS enabled us to map the electrical distribution system and track feeder lines that historically lose power during a storm.

• Strategic response to critical-care patients

  GIS enabled us to identify electric service customers who had critical medical situations requiring special equipment for survival — and to respond if they lost power.

• Real-time incident tracking

  As the hurricane events began, GIS mapping was used to track incidents as they unfolded, providing staff in the emergency operations center a visual map of what was happening.

Some benefit was received as a result of these new uses of the technology. More importantly, as this was the first time the city had applied the technology in this way, many lessons were learned as to how to make GIS technology more useful in future events.

Pre-incident analysis

In the days leading up to the hurricane, Wilson conducted an analysis of historical flood events and FEMA-designated flood hazard areas.

This analysis quickly revealed the areas in the city that can become isolated in major floods and identified sections of streets known to be hazardous during flood events. Armed with this information, we made plans to preposition response resources in areas that ran the risk of becoming isolated. In addition, we made tentative plans to block off and reroute six streets prone to flooding.

Fortunately, the low level of streams prior to Isabel's landfall and the relatively small amount of precipitation Wilson received prevented major flooding. Despite the city's fortune, the analysis is significant as flooding is an issue Wilson will likely face in future storms.

Sharing the results of the pre-incident analysis more widely throughout the city is one way we can improve our preparedness for the next disaster. The public services department and Wilson Fire/Rescue Services were the only agencies that used the flood-prone area analysis. This information needs to be shared with police and utilities to help them preposition resources. Although the likelihood of another flood event of the same magnitude as Floyd may seem unlikely, preparations for such a flood must be made. All city departments must be aware of the possibility that floodwaters may isolate and divide our community.

We also could improve pre-incident analysis by including potential wind damage. By implementing a “tree inventory system” that has been requested by the parks and recreation department, we could track information on tree location, size, age and maintenance. If information on the electric utilities department's tree-trimming activities were included in this database, it may be possible to identify the areas most likely to suffer fallen trees during a storm. This capability would be of marginal value during a storm, but could be of great value as part of a pre-incident mitigation strategy.

Outage tracking

During Hurricane Isabel, the emergency operations center used GIS to strategically track electric feeder lines as they lost power and had power restored, giving personnel in the EOC a graphic picture of what portions of the service area were without power. Addresses could be searched to determine if they were served by a feeder known to be off-line. The depiction of off-line feeders in GIS also provided rough estimates of the numbers of customers affected by power outages.

Tracking power outages could be significantly improved by tracking actual customer calls in the GIS, rather than simply tracking feeder lines. This type of tracking would provide a more accurate depiction of the outage event as scattered power outages would be tracked, rather than just entire feeders out. This would enable identification of isolated customers without power.

In addition, there were occasions during the storm where portions of feeders were out, but this was not captured by the methodology used during Isabel. If each customer who called in an outage report was logged into the GIS, the partial outages would be tracked and network analysis could be conducted to identify likely trouble spots.

Furthermore, tracking every out customer would provide a more definitive count of customers out. Tracking in this manner would also allow for quick identification of repeat calls to prevent duplicate tickets from entering the workflow. If every call was logged in the GIS, this data could be used after the event to coordinate recovery efforts.

Finally, tracking calls in GIS would allow for post-incident analysis of outages. Tracking outage events at this level of detail would require a change in the way customer calls are handled. Information from each customer call must be logged in a database of some description rather than recording the information only on paper.

Critical customer recognition

As information on out-of-service electric feeder lines came in, customers served by those feeder lines were identified. Using critical-care customer information from the utility billing database in conjunction with the customer point file, customers who are medically dependent on power were identified.

Each time a customer was identified, the information was either passed along to the 911 center, or the customer was actually called by Wilson Fire/Rescue personnel to see if they needed assistance. In one instance, a customer in a neighboring county was identified, and that information was passed on to the appropriate authorities.

Although contacting each medically dependent customer whose power went out seemed like a good thing to do, our staff soon realized that these people had made arrangements for lost power prior to the storm. We were tying up resources where there was no need. Due to the fortunate lack of severity of the event, this did not create a huge problem, but in an event such as Floyd this would be unacceptable.

In the future, it may be advisable to send informational mailings to these customers in the weeks leading up to a possible storm. The letter might indicate that there's a storm coming, that power may well go out, and that they should plan accordingly. Finally, the letter would tell the customers to dial 911 if they need assistance. This informs and protects a vulnerable population without tying up critical resources during an event.

Incident tracking

All information that came into the EOC throughout the day on Sept. 18 was plotted on the GIS. Information on downed power lines and trees, house fires, flooding, and structural damage was tracked as it came in. The plotted incidents were visible to all personnel in the EOC via a projector connected to the EOC GIS laptop. This map allowed EOC personnel to visualize where events were unfolding and where streets were blocked.

But we realize this system of data tracking and visualization was functional only due to the event's lack of severity. Had Isabel had the impact of Hurricane Floyd or Hurricane Fran, entering incident data as it came into the EOC would quickly have exceeded the capability of a single person. In addition, EOC personnel may very well have been too busy to relay information to the GIS operator.

For a useful and valid common operational picture to be maintained in the EOC, an automated system that connects 911 calls to GIS is needed. That way, the only interactive data entry during a storm would be information on flooding and blocked streets, neither of which comes through 911.

Visualization of an emergency as it unfolds is beneficial to all parties involved, but only if the system is robust enough to handle a severe event. Even more importantly, the system is only useful if it doesn't take the time of personnel who need to be the recipients of information from the system to serve as originators of information.

If a dynamic incident-tracking system can be created, the results need to be passed on to public services and planning/inspections as soon as the damage assessment and recovery efforts begin. After the storm, personnel from these departments begin to survey damage. Access to maps and reports created during the event could help them to more effectively manage their efforts.

The events prior to and during Hurricane Isabel gave an indication of the possible utility of GIS in emergency management for the City of Wilson. We're convinced GIS needs to be fully exploited prior to an incident to identify, plan for and mitigate hazards. GIS use during an event also will benefit the city, but only if the system is capable of functioning during an event on the scale we experienced with Hurricane Floyd or larger.

The post-incident analysis of all events must be very critical to realize the optimum benefit of the experience. Once a successful incident-tracking system is in place, the results of this system must be made available throughout the city during recovery efforts. Fortunately Isabel provided a relatively mild environment in which to learn these lessons.

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Don Oliver has been the fire chief for Wilson (N.C.) Fire/Rescue Services since 1992 and also has served as fire chief in Thornton, Colo. He began his career with the Wichita (Kan.) Fire Department in 1967. Oliver is a past president of the National Society of Executive Fire Officers and a member of the Board of Visitors at the National Fire Academy.

Free Tutorial

The U.S. Fire Administration is distributing a free CD-ROM — based tutorial to help fire departments implement a geographic information system and its applications for displaying their data reported to the National Fire Incident Reporting System.

The NFIRS/GIS Introduction and Tutorial (FA-259) introduces GIS technologies for the fire service and offers links to more advanced information and key resources, including the U.S. National Grid — North American Datum 1983 (USNG-NAD83) standard, the single consensus “location interoperability” reference standard required nationwide to make location-based technologies, such as Global Positioning Systems and GIS, the most effective and useful they can be in terms of equipment, plans, communications protocols and disaster operations.

Also included in on the CD-ROM, courtesy of “American Heat” of Primedia Workplace Learning, is a video called “Mapping the Future of Fire.” The video shows real-world fire department uses for GIS — from the apparatus to the chief's office — implemented from scratch for Wilson (N.C.) Fire/Rescue Services.

For a free copy of the NFIRS/GIS tutorial, visit the USFA publications center at www.usfa.fema.gov/applications/publications.

About Wilson

Known as the “City of Beautiful Trees” for tree-lined streets in its historic downtown district and as “America's Largest Tobacco Market” for a rich farming history, Wilson is a growing city, population just shy of 50,000, in eastern North Carolina. Sixty miles south of Virginia, Wilson is bordered on the west by Interstate 95.

Wilson Fire/Rescue Services was accredited by the Commission on Fire Accreditation International in 2002 and provides fire protection, EMS, fire inspections, public education programs, technical rescue and hazmat response. Three shifts of 27 personnel each are assigned to five stations operating five engine companies, one truck company and two light squads. The department responded to about 3,900 incidents in 2002, of which about 50% were EMS calls.

For more details, see the department's site at www.wilsonnc.org/fire.htm.

FIRECHIEF.COM

For more information on Wilson Fire/Rescue's use of GIS, see “Atlas, arrayed” from April 2002.