“It’s the red house down a ways a bit, yeah the one that Ben used to live in.” That’s a great way to tell someone new in town where your house is, but when it comes to emergency services, it’s far from helpful.
City Hall is partnering with DATAMARK, a business solutions company, to update addresses on the houses and buildings in Wrangell. Borough officials hope the changes will increase the community’s emergency and disaster preparedness.
The first step in the process will be to update the online maps of the borough’s GIS (geographic information system) to include proper addresses for all residences. This, according to Borough Manager Mason Villarma, is a crucial aspect of the readdressing project because the GIS database is what modern police, fire and EMS services use to respond to calls.
Police Chief Gene Meek is thrilled about this.
“Our current dispatch system,” he said, “is based upon the dispatchers typing into a Microsoft Word document what has occurred. We don’t have a computer-aided dispatch system because we don’t have a GIS system.”
Villarma said he expects DATAMARK to work with residents to help determine addresses for those who currently don’t have them.
“I think residents can expect engagement in different varieties,” he said. “But it will translate to a new address you get to put in front of your house.”
Villarma added that he expects the process to take about a year.
“It’s going to take some time to get the GIS system (in place) and then really just engage everybody that needs to update their addresses,” he said.
The entire project will cost about $80,000, which the borough will cover with a state grant of federal funds. Initially, the state awarded Wrangell nearly $90,000 for the project, but City Hall officials were able to award the contract to DATAMARK well under budget.
According to Economic Development Director Kate Thomas’ report to the assembly, DATAMARK will assess what’s needed, update and fill in missing addresses and then put the new system into operation.
“It’ll be a bit of a headache. I don’t know that there’s any way of getting around it,” Villarma said. “(This) is something we need to amend.”
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