Program Provides Images From 911 Call Locations
Posted on: Wednesday, 5 October 2005, 09:00 CDT
By David McPherson, The Providence Journal, R.I.
Oct. 5--PROVIDENCE -- Police and firefighters in four Rhode Island cities should have a better idea of what they are facing when responding to emergency scenes, thanks to new imaging technology delivered to them yesterday.
Under a pilot program that could go statewide, public safety officials in Providence, Warwick, Cranston and Newport will be able to view aerial images of any building or outdoor location in their communities.
The image databases will be tied into the state's E-911 emergency telephone system, meaning that emergency personnel will be able to instantly bring up photographs of call locations.
"We all know in a 911 situation, every second counts," Governor Carcieri said yesterday as he and Raymond LaBelle, executive director of the state's E-911 system, delivered the new equipment to representatives of the four cities at a State House ceremony.
The patented technology, developed by Pictometry International Corp., of Rochester, N.Y., provides high-resolution images taken from an airplane flying at about 2,500 feet. For each location, up to 12 images from a variety of angles are available.
"When I saw this, I said, 'Got to have this in Rhode Island,' " LaBelle said.
A $75,000 grant to the state from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security provided the funding for Pictometry to collect aerial images of the four cities.
LaBelle said he is confident the state will receive a second grant to help expand the pilot program and that he hopes to eventually take it statewide. In total, LaBelle said, it would cost about $200,000 to make the Pictometry system available throughout the state.
Dante Pennacchia, Pictometry's chief marketing officer, said the company's technology is used in about 150 counties around the United States, covering about 28 percent of the country's population. Major cities using the technology include New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Las Vegas and New Orleans, he said.
The privately held company hopes to install the system in areas covering 80 percent of the U.S. population within two years, Pennacchia said.
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Source: Providence Journal
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