Radar, touchscreen tech shows county coming storms
Some new technology is helping local emergency officials track dangerous storms approaching the county and to have more sophisticated training sessions.
Montgomery County Emergency Management Agency recently acquired DTN WeatherSentry software that conveys information such as a storm's distance from the county, its history — such as wind speed and hail size — height of the storm cloud and the severity.
When coupled with a $13,000 "smart board" computer monitor, EMA officials watch for severe weather long before it becomes a threat to the county.
"We fell in love with it," Jerry Buchanan, deputy director of EMA, said of DTN. "It's a great tool."
Buchanan was referring to a one-week trial basis, after which EMA bought the software without hesitation.
What sold them was tracking the April 7 severe storm that spawned a tornado which hit Gallatin.
They watched the storm's trek on DTN as it headed toward Clarksville, but split when it reached Henry and Perry Counties. The two storms then traveled north and south of Clarksville, not even "blowing one tree down," Buchanan said.
The Montgomery County EMA can't issue severe weather watches or warnings, but its officials now have the capabilities to understand a storm well enough to alert the National Weather Service of possible problems.
"It's a very good tool for us to have because when severe weather is moving in, we can actually track it and get more information," Buchanan said of the weather software.
DTN can even predict a storm's patterns up to 2 1/2 hours into the future.
And with the DTN projected through the smart board, a 56-inch, flat-screen computer monitor, nearly everyone in the room can see what's happening.
Smart training
Since the smart board isn't used every day to track storms, officials use it to teach rooms full of public employees.
Days of the overhead projector are long gone.
Smart board users can draw and highlight certain items on the screen with computer-censored colored pens. The board also has a touchscreen option, which makes maneuverability easier during a presentation, said Buchanan. The touchscreen can be used with any type of software.
One such software is the Geographic Information Maintenance System, which pinpoints exact incidents throughout the county. The program includes a detailed county map — all the way to its tree lines — that aids officials in finding a specific location, rather than searching for coordinates on a regular map, Buchanan said.
Additionally, officials can place a colored mark of each affected location as calls are received by 911. When multiple reports come in, they are reflected on the screen to give an overall picture of what's happening, enabling officials send appropriate crews to the the emergency, Buchanan said.
EMA purchased the board with a TEMA/FEMA grant in 2004.
He said better training sessions have been a dividend of the investment.
"I can take the same stuff and hook it up to a laptop," Buchanan said, comparing the program to PowerPoint. "But here you can highlight things, draw something, illustrate things that you want to point out. That's the plus."
Chief Deputy Ed Patterson of the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office, said his department uses the board several times per week for Homeland Security meetings and inservice and regional training sessions.
"It's a very valuable tool for having any type of audio/visual presentation," he said. "It's very versatile."
Before the smart board, he said presentations became cumbersome with individual pieces of equipment, such as separate projectors and boards to write on. But the simple insertion of a removable hard drive into the laptop to project onto the smart board have made preparations much simpler.
"This thing takes the place of just about every type of visual device you would need," Patterson said. "It makes it real handy."