THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 17, 1996 TAG: 9607170344
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY JENNIFER MCMENAMIN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MANTEO LENGTH: 62 lines
When Dare County Emergency Management crews fanned out across the Outer Banks on Sunday to assess the damage from Hurricane Bertha, it took them 11 hours.
If there is a next time, it might take only minutes.
Using new air-to-ground video imagery equipment, emergency management officials might be able to tell almost immediately what damage was done.
``When a disaster occurs, county officials want to have a factual assessment of what happened,'' said Maurice Thomas III, director of communications for the Middle East Region headquarters of the Civil Air Patrol. ``They need to certify the extent of damage . . . as soon as possible because they want money to flow and relief efforts to kick in.
``If we can shorten that time interval and we can have video within real time - within minutes - assistance and money can start flowing.''
Thomas presented a flight demonstration of the airborne video capability equipment to Dare County Emergency Management personnel Tuesday at the Dare County Detention Center.
Delaware pilot Bob Vawtea, flying over the barrier islands in a light plane, captured still images with a home video camera.
A modem, also aboard the plane, converted the picture into a shrieking audio signal. Using an FM radio, the pilot then transmitted the images through phone lines and satellite links to television sets on the ground.
About 70 seconds after the pilot shot the picture in the air, emergency planners on the ground viewed the image.
Pointing to an image of the Wright Brothers Memorial being transmitted by the plane overhead to a television screen in the briefing room, Thomas said the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the governor and the president all could be seeing what happened.
Stamped with the date, time and coordinates from the plane's global positioning receiver, the images allow emergency crews to locate - within 50 feet - the image's origin.
N.H. ``Sandy'' Sanderson Jr., director of Dare County Emergency Management, said the equipment could have multiple uses.
``We could evaluate evacuation real time and discern any type of problem, such as traffic backups or accidents,'' he said. ``An assessment flyover could also give us a realistic idea of the extent of damage.''
Sanderson now relies on ``windshield evaluations.'' On Sunday, the four teams started out at 6 a.m., spent the day driving around the county and developed a damage assessment package by 5 p.m.
But it often takes longer. Flooding, downed trees and power and telephone outages sometimes force workers to drive photographs and reports back to the operations center.
``It would speed up the identification of where problems are,'' Sanderson said. ``The quicker you identify problems, the quicker you can get specialists in there.''
He said the equipment could be shared with the sheriff's department for monitoring and surveillance work, by the water department to check water breaks and by the forestry service to monitor forest fires.
Thomas' offer would cost Dare County between $3,500 for a basic system and $7,000 for all the accessories.
With $18,000 allocated for such gear in this year's county budget, Sanderson said his department will purchase either Thomas' package or a similar one from another company. by CNB