Covington Fire seeking info about homes, businesses to improve emergency responses

COVINGTON, Ky. – Seconds count in an emergency, so Covington’s Fire Department wants to know what makes your home or business unique.

For homeowners, for example:

• Is your elderly father living with you and confined to a wheelchair?
• Is your 8-year-old daughter autistic, and does she tend to hide in a closet when stressed?
• Do you have five dogs that you consider part of your family?
• Or are you a competition trap shooter, and because you reload your own shotgun shells, you typically have 10 to 20 pounds of combustible Red Dot and 700-X powder in a locker in your basement?

The Department has set up an online data bank called Covington Community Connect to which residents and businesses can add valuable information about their buildings and households that will help firefighters respond to emergencies more effectively, quickly, and safely.

“Community Connect empowers residents and business owners to take a proactive approach in an emergency and have a voice in assisting our response,” said Joe Vance, Assistant Fire Chief of Prevention and Education. “From our end, it takes a portion of the guesswork out of our response and gives us a better idea of what we’re walking into.”

More about the program – and the link to enroll – can be found at Community Connect. The program is safe, secure, and free: To create an account, you need only your name, phone number, email, and street address. Your account is protected by a password, and only the Fire Department (and you) can see your information.

People can update their accounts as often as they wish and add whatever information they feel is appropriate or they’re comfortable revealing. Types of information that can be helpful include:

• Occupants: The number of people living in a house.
• Contact info: How to get hold of you in an emergency.
• Health challenges: Whether anyone has a health challenge or condition that could cause issues or require special attention, such as someone who has a physical disability, is deaf, or has autism.
• Language barriers: Whether anyone doesn’t speak English.
• Animals: The number of pets.
• Sleeping quarters: The location of bedrooms.
• Hazardous materials: The storage of fuel and/or explosives, and the presence of such features as solar panels. Businesses can list chemicals on site.
• Safety equipment: Whether a house or building has smoke detectors and/or a sprinkler system. (Note that when you sign up, you can request a smoke detector if you need one and don’t have the means to acquire one.)
• Utilities: Location of gas and water shutoffs.
• Setup: Whether your house has a basement, pool, or live-in attic.

Through Enhanced 911 technology and CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch) software, the Fire Department already has some of this information for businesses and has the ability to log information about a house (if it knows it). But Community Connect streamlines, formalizes, and expands that capability and allows homeowners and business owners to be involved.

Fire officials began introducing Covington Community Connect to businesses during the annual inspections that started earlier this month and has have been handing out postcards with QR codes to people who come to Friday night fish fries run by Covington Professional Firefighters Local 38.

Vance said Community Connect is one of the outward-facing features of the First Due all-encompassing management system that Covington’s Fire Department began using a year or two ago. Internally, the software is used for things like emergency planning, scheduling, inspections, to log and analyze run data, and to manage maintenance of fire hydrants.

“We’re excited to roll Community Connect out to the public and let them benefit from First Due’s capabilities,” he said.

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