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Helping equip, promote faster response |
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Thursday, 08 May 2008 |
Grant purchases laptops for FD vehicles
By KAREN CAMPBELL
Staff Writer
Fire department and rescue squad personnel throughout Auglaize County should soon have one more tool to help them respond faster to emergencies.
Fifteen Panasonic Toughbooks, proven through tests to be the most rugged wireless laptops in the industry, are expected to be placed in lead vehicles for fire and emergency medical responders throughout the county in paid and volunteer departments.
A 2007 federal Homeland Security Grant is paying the $47,000 to purchase the computers onboard fire trucks and rescue squads.
The laptops are the third phase of a project that began in 2003 to put in place software and infrastructure improvements that would allow the laptops to become vital communication tools, said Auglaize County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) Director Troy Anderson, who helped secure the funding.
The laptops are expected to be ordered in a week and could be online and ready to go before the end of June.
Through layered maps provided by the county Engineer’s Office, the laptops could detail to responders specific locations, what routes may be closed to get there, provide alternate routes, as well as show the nearest water source and other physical features of the location. All the information would be available right in the vehicles as firefighters and paramedics are responding to the scene.
Wapakoneta Fire Chief Kendall Krites said the laptops also could have certain information they might need, such as fire safety inspections and building plans, as a regular computer would. The information could be updated as needed.
“There’s endless data you can have at your fingertips on a computer, from weather to chemicals,” Krites said. “There’s so much you can put on a laptop. It’s a step into the 21st century, probably the 20th century, but we’re getting there, slowly but surely.”
With time, Krites said he would like his department to have laptops in every vehicle.
Law enforcement agencies throughout the county used other grant funding to purchase laptops to get on board with the project a couple years ago.
The Homeland Security grant, totaling more than $63,000, also was used to purchase eight gas masks for the Wapakoneta Police Department to be used by special response teams.
The masks, valued at approximately $360 each, could be used to prevent breathing in harmful chemicals, and the masks’ shatterproof shields also would guard against other injuries, Anderson said.
The remainder of the agency’s grant is expected to be used to purchase two additional interoperable communication units, at $5,000 each,, to improve communications between agencies when they are responding to emergency situations.
Anderson said each year committee members look at the county’s needs to determine what is the most important area for the federal funding to go.
“We determine needs, risks, deficiencies,” Anderson said. “We reaccess it each year.” |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 09 May 2008 )
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