The Fort Worth Fire Department (FWFD) is now using a program called Community Connect that hopes to make it easier for rescuers to find families in their homes during chaotic emergencies like fires and storm damage.
According to fire officials, those are only some of the benefits.
FWFD has had the program for less than a year and for people who have signed up for the program, vital information is sent to first responders at the moment they get dispatched to a participant's home or business.
It gives information firefighters need to know but would have no way of actually knowing.
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FWFD spokesperson Craig Trojacek gave examples.
“We can look at that stuff in real time that's tied back to that address to where we know if grandma was in the back southwest corner of the home and she's unable to get out by herself, we're going to focus all of our attention to going in there and getting grandma out as quickly as possible,” he said.
“Same thing if we've got families in the community that say they have children that may be autistic and nonverbal, and they might not be able to communicate with us the way that we typically do,” Trojacek said. “We can already have a game plan going into that home knowing that we're going to speak with the child about the best way that we can find a solution to whatever problem that we're showing up to.”
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Trojacek said homeowners can even add where pets are located to help with their well-being during an emergency.
“You can put in there how many people reside in this home. So, we can go back and we can look to see if we found everybody. If there are contacts to where maybe we haven't found everybody and there's injured that can't speak with us, we can try to go back down the list and contact those other folks through that information that the residents are putting into this program,” Trojacek said. “We can say, ‘Hey, everybody's been accounted for. We had three people that are at home. We were missing two, but those two happen to be across town at work or grocery shopping.’”
So far only around 100 people have signed up, but officials remind that the program is only effective for the people who are in the free and secure database.
Businesses are encouraged to sign up and give information about entry codes and the locations of hazardous materials.
Sign up HERE.
