When Opportunity Knocks

By Battalion Chief Doug Cline

I am sure you have heard the old expressions about opportunity only knocking once and not looking into the mouth of the proverbial gift horse. These sayings can come up in our conversations, but do we actually believe them? Some fire and rescue departments must, because they seize every opportunity they can, and utilize every advantage possible.

The Wilson (N.C.) Fire and Rescue Services is one department that doesn’t hesitate when an opportunity presents itself; even when that opportunity doesn’t immediately glitter with gold. Under the direction of Chief Don Oliver, the WF/RS has taken advantage of fortuitous events and increased its capabilities through creative thinking and cooperative partnerships. One avenue that is open—but sometimes overlooked—to all departments today are the FIRE Act Grants, which in 2002 awarded $237,000 to Wilson. These funds were used to replace all of the department’s breathing apparatus and its two-way radio hardware, but the WF/RS took it a step further by working with the city’s police department and the city manager to complete a total overhaul of the community’s radio system, replacing the old one with a state-of-the-art Nextel system that benefited all.

Located in eastern North Carolina, just off I-95, the city of Wilson is about 40 miles east of the state’s capital in Raleigh, and encompasses 27.6 square miles of land. Incorporated in 1849 after the merger of a train depot and a small farming community, agriculture has been the economic mainstay of Wilson for the past 115 years. The city grew into the largest tobacco center in the world during the early 1900s, but the area has faced severe challenges since the ’70s, when changes in the tobacco industry caused a significant drop in the area’s production.

In the last 20 years, though, Wilson has evolved with the times, experiencing a shift in its economic base, from agriculture to agribusiness and manufacturing. And with the urban sprawl of Raleigh drawing nearer, Wilson’s population has grown 20 percent over the last 10 years, making it home to 50,000 residents.

PROGRESSIVE TOWN AND CHIEF

With the city growing quickly, Chief Oliver makes sure that he does everything possible to keep up from his end. A 37-year veteran of the fire service, he has led the WF/RS since March 1992. Chief Oliver is a past chair of the International Association of Fire Chiefs’ Fire Prevention Committee, the former president of the National Society of Executive Fire Officers (1996-2004) and a member of the National Fire Protection Association. He also serves as vice chair of the Board of Visitors for the National Fire Academy and is a declared candidate for the office of 2nd vice president of the IAFC in 2006. This diverse background allows Chief Oliver insight to the inner workings of politics in the industry and a firm understanding of how important it is to take advantage of every opportunity that presents itself.

Chief Oliver points out that too often a problem is used as an excuse for failure, instead of a reason to try something new. Most first responders are quick thinkers and creative problem solvers to begin with, and he knows it can be a huge boost when a department takes advantage of that.

THEY GOT A STEAL

In 2003, a unique situation presented itself to the WF/RS. The opportunity was not a large grant of money, but it got several municipal and private agencies working together for a common goal: the betterment of the community. The Wilson County Sheriff’s Office recovered a 24-foot, enclosed vehicle trailer from an attempted burglary. The actual target was a safe, but first the thieves stole a trailer that was originally designed to carry a racecar. The plan was to then steal a forklift from a local warehouse, so they could in turn pick up the safe, using the trailer to haul each stolen item. But the plan turned out to have one dreadful floor … er, flaw. Since the trailer was designed to carry cars, its supports were located toward the outside of the unit over the tires. When the thieves drove the heavy—and narrow—forklift up the middle, there wasn’t enough reinforcement and the forklift fell straight through the floor of the trailer. The thieves decided it best to rethink their plan and left the mess where it stood.

After recovering the trailer, the sheriff’s department was unable to find even the manufacturer of the trailer, never mind the owner. With no one stepping forward to claim the unit, the offer was made to donate it to the city’s fire department.

“Initially I was called over to look at the trailer in the warehouse, and after seeing it, I realized that it had potential,” says Chief Oliver. “The actual use wasn’t decided until I sat down and talked with the city manager, but we talked about the possibilities and

we realized that it had a lot of promise. Eventually, we decided that it could be a combination command center.”

After a series of meetings and discussions with other emergency response service agencies within the county, a plan was devised to build a mobile emergency operations center (EOC)—also referred to as a unified command center (UCC). And as interested city and county officials got together to discuss the unit’s future, a plan was developed that would take advantage of all the available resources, and in turn eventually meet the needs of all the partners.

“We brought it back to headquarters, and I had some of the firefighters come take a look at it and tell us what they could do,” Chief Oliver says. “They really got excited about the possibilities, and the whole crew took it on as a personal project. Even the guys who weren’t able to work on it directly covered the shifts and responsibilities for the guys who could.”

Upon first inspection, this gift horse was far from a thoroughbred. All the damaged sections had to be replaced and the superstructure needed to be raised 18 inches for adequate headroom. The rear floor where the ramp was located was leveled and exterior doors and windows were added. They also installed a self-contained restroom facility along with a kitchen area that is equipped with a 40-gallon water supply and an instant 110v water heater. A tow-roof-mounted, combination heating and air conditioning unit was installed, and the interior was customized with carpet-type wall covering and handcrafted cabinetry, all designed and installed by the Wilson firefighters.

POWER SUPPLY

While the firefighters were able to make the unit solid on the outside and comfortable on the inside, they really only had control over the aesthetics. In order to actually turn the trailer into a command center, they needed to get their hands on thousands of dollars of state-of-the-art electronic equipment.

Thanks to Chief Oliver’s connections, that wasn’t a problem. Always open to new ideas and technology, the chief has nurtured relationships with some of the industry’s giants and continually assists their efforts to develop cutting-edge technology. As such, private grants and donations from industry leaders Hewlett-Packard, Environmental Systems Research Institute and the Omega Group provided the “power” for the capabilities of the UCC.

“As we started with the project, we were looking at the capabilities that we wanted it to have,” says the chief. “And because of our relationship with Hewlett-Packard in the past, we were able to approach them and talk to them about the idea we had.

“What really made this all come together were the relationships that we’ve been building over the last four or five years over various projects, and these companies saw the potential. Our various partners have come back to see it, and they’ve been very excited about what we’ve done and how we applied the technology.”

GUTS CHECK

The hardware from Hewlett-Packard includes three HP nw8000 laptop computers as well as a fourth computer that is the server. The server operates with four (yes, four) 23-inch flat-screen monitors that turn the back wall of the trailer into a rolling theatre. Each screen can punch up a different display (or eventually a satellite television station, thus monitoring the news, weather, etc.) that lays out an endless supply of information, such as building floor plans or any other critical tidbit available through the city and county. Hewlett-Packard also supplied a Design Jet 800 plotter capable of pumping out wall-sized maps that can be printed and distributed as the situation develops; and an HP Office Jet 7310 multifunction unit that can print, copy, scan and fax.

Software programs provided by ESRI and Omega also provide exceptional capabilities for the center, and the mobile EOC also has fully integrated GIS functionality. The server in the mobile unit is running ArcSDE on a SQL database. This software allows the command center to house a complete replica of the city and county’s enterprise geo-database in the mobile unit. This provides emergency response officials with access to all city and county datasets in a mobile environment. These data include electric, gas and water distribution systems, flood zones, customer locations, jurisdictional boundaries, digital elevation models and hazardous material locations.

The mobile EOC is also equipped with one license of ArcInfo version 9.0, and three licenses of ArcView version 9.0. In an emergency situation, the ArcInfo license will be used by a GIS staff member to actively update data layers as an event unfolds. Examples of the types of data that can be tracked during the emergency include downed trees, flooded streets, fallen power lines and buildings with structural damage. This provides commanders with a visual representation of the event as it unfolds, allowing decisions to be made with the most up-to-date situational information available.

The GIS capabilities in the mobile EOC provide emergency service personnel with a robust decision support system that can aid in emergency response. The common operational picture, which GIS facilitates, allows decision makers from multiple agencies to collaborate and coordinate operations.

The UCC is also equipped with an auto-tracking satellite receiver system for both video and data. A 45-foot pneumatic mast with dual color/infrared cameras is scheduled to be installed. To go along with that is an external video feed-in and

a standard DVD/VCR/DVD-RW that completes its audiovisual capabilities.

Communications equipment includes two cellular telephones, two Nextel radios and two vhf radios. This complement allows users of the EOC to communicate with all emergency responders within the county as well as numerous state agencies. The UCC is further equipped with a wireless data system that allows the laptops to be operated within 100 feet of the unit and remain connected to the rest of the system. This WiFi system includes external antennas that expand the EOC’s network to wireless data users anywhere on the emergency scene.

IN ENGLISH

So what does all this technology mean for those who aren’t computer gurus? Well, it means that anything you would like to know about your community, as long as it is loaded into a GIS database that is updated regularly, is at your fingertips and can be displayed separately or combined on a computer screen.

“We have an emergency operations center that everyone reports to that is set up at our city operations center,” says Chief Oliver. “It is for an incident that is not a full-blown city incident; or maybe could be used as a forward command post for that full-blown incident.

“I can see it being used where you may need commanders on-scene handling an incident, or an EOC where the major operations need to use this as a field unit. Now we’ll have the mobile capabilities when we need a multi-agency response.”

As a command officer, this will enhance your ability to make strategic action plans and tactical decisions during major incidents. During these major events—either manmade or natural—this technology allows the command or operations team to instantly review critical information ranging from water supply and gas-line locations to schools and vacant buildings to the elderly woman across town who needs electricity due to a medical necessity.

And despite all this hardware, the project is far from over.

“There’re other capabilities that need to be added to the trailer, including closed-circuit TV and wireless Internet, but those are things we’ll do down the road,” says Oliver. “It’s really an ongoing process, and we’re not done with it by any stretch of the imagination. But it’s proved to be very beneficial already; the police department has used it on three different crime scenes.

“The firefighters take it out and set it up, and retrieve it when they are done with it. We have not had to respond to anything where both agencies were using it at the same time, and we’re thankful for that, because if we get to that situation we’ll be dealing with a serious incident.”

ADDITIONAL FUNDING

Although FIRE Act money has been utilized by Wilson in the past, it was not used in the development of this unit. A collaborative partnership was developed between the Wilson County Agencies of Emergency Management, EMS, city and county law enforcement and Wilson Fire/Rescue Services. Because the potential uses of the unit were agreed upon before the project got under way, each agency was prepared to do its part to contribute.

Since the trailer alone is not mobile, it needed a dedicated rescue ready to transport it to the scene. The Wilson County EMS and Emergency management departments, as well as the communications center, supported the unit by passing along a $37,500 Homeland Security Grant that was used to assist in the purchase of a Ford F-550 chassis that would pull the unit. The police department contributed $40,000 from its Asset Forfeiture Account that went toward the purchase of the enclosed body from Hackney Brothers in Washington, N.C., to help complete the rescue. Since the unit would be used for joint operations with the police department, the rescue carries the SRT equipment as well as a 10,000-watt, diesel-powered generator that provides the AC power for the UCC.

The collaboration between the different departments in Wilson County is an excellent example of how far teamwork can carry your cause. By pooling resources, each department now has at its disposal a cutting-edge apparatus that is as sophisticated as any piece of equipment used by any department in the country.

This collaborative concept is being used more and more throughout the United States, not just between police and fire, but with a variety of organizations. The old days of competition and jealously between emergency agencies needs to be made a thing of the past for the good of the community. With automatic mutual-aid agreements in place and the financial burden shared, Wilson has created a much safer and better-equipped response team.

As you look at the side of the UCC, you will see that the emblems on the unit are of multiple agencies. This effort is one that the fire service as a whole must explore and engage in more often in the future. The pooling of resources and collaboration is the key to the success of emergency services. No one entity can provide all of the key elements to a successful comprehensive emergency services agency, but together the future is limitless. So the next time opportunity knocks, open the door. You may be pleasantly surprised by what walks in.      NF&R

Doug Cline is a battalion chief for the Chapel Hill (N.C.), FD and can be reached at dcline@townofchapelhill.org.