NKAPC’s GIS staff and Pendleton County Fiscal Court are nearing completion of a GIS-based Reverse-911 system. Reverse-911 provides a way for emergency management services to contact people who live in a certain geographic area in case of emergency.
“Reverse-911 is a great way for officials to warn people of imminent danger,” said Joe Busemeyer, one of NKAPC’s principal GIS specialists. “If there was a chemical leak or flash flood, for example, the County can use GIS to identify the extent of the affected area and contact all residents who live there within a short time.”
The system can use automated messages for the selected phone numbers or it can provide local officials the phone numbers so they can call the affected residents personally.
“Information from Cincinnati Bell and maps from LINK-GIS make this possible,” said Busemeyer.
“We used Cincinnati Bell’s data base of phone numbers and corresponding addresses and matched them against information in our GIS.” he said. “The final product will enable local officials to generate a listing of phone numbers—both land lines and wireless—for any defined area of the county.”
NKAPC staff worked on this project for several months and just recently delivered the final product to Pendleton County officials for review. Once the project’s data are checked and approved, they will be turned over to a vendor that specializes in automated response calls.
“This was a new type of project for NKAPC’s GIS staff,” concluded Busemeyer. “We look forward to working with Pendleton County officials on additional projects and applaud their use of GIS for emergency preparedness.”