Michael Martz
Richmond Times - Dispatch
Copyright 2007 Richmond Times - Dispatch
RICHMOND, Va. — Richmond isn’t waiting for the city’s most vulnerable people to call in an emergency, whether it’s a heat wave or an approaching hurricane.
Instead, the city is preparing a way to extend help to disabled, elderly or infirm people before they have to dial 911.
The initiative will create a voluntary database of people with special needs who live in Richmond, so that emergency officials can anticipate where help will be needed before a crisis begins.
“The objective is to identify these citizens before they become patients,” said Jerry L. Overton, executive director of Richmond Ambulance Authority.
The ambulance authority is working with Richmond officials to establish the registry by early September, a year after Tropical Storm Ernesto swamped the neighborhoods around Battery Park and strained the city’s ability to evacuate people with serious physical needs.
“The registry allows us to know where the people are and what to bring in an emergency,” said Benjamin W. Johnson, the city’s director of emergency services.
The system won’t be available during this week’s heat wave, which is expected to resume today after a respite provided by passing thunderstorms yesterday afternoon.
Instead, city agencies will depend on people to call them for help, or take advantage of three cooling shelters that will be open today until 5 p.m. because of the anticipated heat index reaching the upper 90s.
Before yesterday’s thunderstorms, for example, 80 people called the Richmond Department of Social Services about heat-related problems, such as malfunctioning air conditioning, a need for fans or help with electric bills they can’t afford to pay.
The department was able to direct people to nonprofit programs for distributing fans to the needy or provide them financial help with utility bills through a cooling-assistance program operated by the state.
The city also handed out more than 700 bottles of cold water to overheated people who walked into cooling shelters yesterday in downtown Richmond, Church Hill and South Richmond.
Richmond police said they didn’t get any calls for heat exhaustion yesterday.
“The city having cooling centers open has helped make that part of the job a little easier,” police spokeswoman Karla Peters said.
However, Richmond officials are looking for ways to reach out to people who most need help in potentially dangerous situations, instead of waiting for them to call or walk into city offices. The database at the ambulance authority will allow emergency officials to identify people in specific parts of the city who would need help.
With a registry, “you’re able to match individual special needs immediately,” said Paul D. McWhinney, director of social services in Richmond. “That’s a challenge for everybody across the state.”
In fact, Richmond may be leading the way with the initiative, said Gail D. Jaspen, Virginia deputy secretary of human resources. “I think it is unique. I am not aware of another local government that is doing it.”
Some localities are trying. Hanover and New Kent counties, for example, maintain lists of people with special needs. Hanover coordinates with Dominion Virginia Power, but the power company generally does not share information about individual customers.
Johnson, the city’s emergency-management coordinator, said Hanover has asked to be part of the new special-needs database, which eventually may be a regional initiative.
“Hanover’s been one of the first ones to step up to the plate and say we want to participate,” he said.
Privacy laws have been a major obstacle to sharing information about people with special needs.
Henrico considered creating a special-needs registry after widespread electric power outages caused by Hurricane Isabel in 2003 and the remnants of Tropical Storm Gaston in 2004, said George T. Drumwright, Jr., deputy county manager for community services. The county discussed the idea with Dominion Virginia Power but backed off because of privacy concerns, he said.
Richmond is addressing those concerns by making the program strictly voluntary.
The ambulance authority already uses a computer program to automatically identify unusual clusters of emergency calls, which it has used to track everything from heat exposure to flu outbreaks.
Overton thinks the new database will give the city a tool that localities don’t have now in a potential crisis, “whether it’s the prolonged heat wave you have now, or an ice storm in the wintertime.”
“It very definitely could be a model.”