Tornados, hurricanes, and floods! Disasters we hope will never come our way, but know the possibility is always there. How great is it that we can worry a little less knowing that Florence County departments are on top of the aftermath should we be subjected to one of these unwelcomed disasters!
That's right! The Florence County Geographic Information System (GIS) staff has developed a computer program (DART), which is a new damage assessment tool that will be utilized in the event of a natural disaster. DART stands for Damage Assessment Relay Tool. The program combines GIS data with tax assessor information and calculates the dollar amount of damage based on property value of buildings and structures. The beauty of the program is the time it could cut in obtaining federal aid for disasters. By utilizing this new program, Florence County Emergency Management is aware almost instantly how much damage has been done and the dollar amount. This information is critical to submit to the state and federal government since this information is one of the considerations as to whether or not a presidential disaster declaration is issued.
So how does this program work? For past disasters, both an inspector and an appraiser would travel to a site with a paper map, clipboard, pen and paper. On the map, they had to figure out what piece of property they were looking at when they came to a damaged area. Then they would write down the parcel number, the type of structure, amount of damage and the address - if they could determine the address! This procedure had to be done for each damaged location. This information then had to be taken to the tax assessor's office to process the estimated damage for the neighborhood. This alone took three days.
With DART, the inspector's use dash-mounted laptops to plot points and send them back to the emergency operations center wirelessly. DART provides drop-down boxes for each field and uses a Global Positioning System (GPS) to pinpoint a team's exact location with a view of the site from the air. That way if the house is gone or completely destroyed, they can still see what use to be there. Now, what would have normally taken days to complete will make the process faster and much more accurate. As we all know, there is always the chance that the wireless communications could go down. No need to worry for this operation, the data can be logged into the computers and uploaded later at the emergecy operations center.
That's right! The Florence County Geographic Information System (GIS) staff has developed a computer program (DART), which is a new damage assessment tool that will be utilized in the event of a natural disaster. DART stands for Damage Assessment Relay Tool. The program combines GIS data with tax assessor information and calculates the dollar amount of damage based on property value of buildings and structures. The beauty of the program is the time it could cut in obtaining federal aid for disasters. By utilizing this new program, Florence County Emergency Management is aware almost instantly how much damage has been done and the dollar amount. This information is critical to submit to the state and federal government since this information is one of the considerations as to whether or not a presidential disaster declaration is issued.
So how does this program work? For past disasters, both an inspector and an appraiser would travel to a site with a paper map, clipboard, pen and paper. On the map, they had to figure out what piece of property they were looking at when they came to a damaged area. Then they would write down the parcel number, the type of structure, amount of damage and the address - if they could determine the address! This procedure had to be done for each damaged location. This information then had to be taken to the tax assessor's office to process the estimated damage for the neighborhood. This alone took three days.
With DART, the inspector's use dash-mounted laptops to plot points and send them back to the emergency operations center wirelessly. DART provides drop-down boxes for each field and uses a Global Positioning System (GPS) to pinpoint a team's exact location with a view of the site from the air. That way if the house is gone or completely destroyed, they can still see what use to be there. Now, what would have normally taken days to complete will make the process faster and much more accurate. As we all know, there is always the chance that the wireless communications could go down. No need to worry for this operation, the data can be logged into the computers and uploaded later at the emergecy operations center.
The Florence County Emergency Management office ran a successful first test on DART in June of this year. DART's capabilities should also help disaster response teams adjust plans as new information becomes available and allow agencies at the emergency operations center to track the path of disasters such as hurricanes and tornadoes. With these coordinates plotted on maps, they can view wind patterns and where the damage occurred. This information helps them make decisions on opening additional shelters and where to send additional resources.
We can't prevent these disasters if they are in our path, but doing whatever we can to make the aftermath easier to deal with is a big thing! Hurricane Hugo and the long weeks following it certainly are not pleasant memories. Learning about DART makes me breath a little easier should we be faced with another similar to Hugo. Hope it does the same for you!
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