Last week it was my pleasure to meet with a group of citizens at the Sherrills Ford-Terrell Fire Rescue base.  We were discussing 911 and emergency calls when one question came up.  “It is sort of hard to get to my house, could you find me?”  In today’s world of GPS’ and Google maps, that question sounds trivial.  However, if you look at the map of the Sherrills Ford area from Google, you can see all the little fingers of land and coves that attract people to live on the lake.  Finding some of these are difficult and add the fact that many GPS providers only update their map once every few years, the concern becomes very real.

So how do we find you?  Each EMS unit and Law Enforcement unit is equipped with GPS tracking and AVL (Automated Vehicle Location).  Just like the GPS in your car, the onboard GPS keeps constant track of the vehicle location.  Information from the unit, for example  location and speed, is sent back to a central data network.  How is this different from the GPS in your car?  Back at the central database, the GPS is integrated with the county’s GIS and complete up-to-date maps.  If a new road is added it will be available to our units in a few days.  New developments and new homes are added from the building services database.  Maps and data in the EMS and Law Enforcement units is constantly being updated.  At the same time, the location of each unit is being sent back to shift supervisors and to the 911 Center.

So how do we find you?  Let’s walk through the entire process.  You have just called 911 and stated that someone in your house is having chest pains.  Time is critical.  The 911 telecommunicator dispatches EMS to your location.  When you called, your phone number and address were displayed on the CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch) screen.  The 911 telecommunicator will always verify with you that this is correct.  When the call is dispatched, the 911 telecommunicator will call the EMS unit by radio.  At the same time, the information is being sent to a computer in the EMS unit.  The computer in the EMS unit displays the address and the emergency details  for the responders.  It also displays a map with the location of the EMS unit and the location of the emergency.  The responding unit can then choose to map to the location and the best route will be displayed on the computer screen.  As the unit travels to the location of the emergency, icons on the screen track progress.  Once at the scene, if  transport to a hospital is necessary, the system will map the best route to the hospital.

So how do we find you?  Thanks to GPS and AVL integrated with GIS, our units have up-to-date maps and routing information to save precious seconds when responding to your emergency.  So whether you live on a beautiful hard to reach cove on Lake Norman or small farm down a country road, relax, we should be able to find you.