Virtual Alabama Quotes and Anecdotes - November 2007

"The information produced by the Virtual Alabama program continues to yield unanticipated positive results for St. Clair County. Our county Department of Transportation, our Sheriff, our Emergency Management Agency, our Revenue Department and others are finding new ways to use this valuable geospatial information. Using this free program, we are converting very expensive GIS and mapping data into very useful tools for the efficient delivery of services to the citizens of St. Clair County."

-          Stan Batemon, St. Clair County Commissioner

The Virtual Alabama program is awesome!!!! The friendly staff at GTAC are so knowledgeable and helpful. I think all governmental agencies can really benefit from this program as the possibilities seem to be limitless.

-          Donna Bailey, Appraiser

Monroe County Revenue Department

“We have an incredible wealth of information and data available to us at many levels of government.  We know it’s all out there, but the key is accessing it in a timely manner.  In our county, various servers in different departments maintain separate data sets for aerial photography, land parcels, flood maps, municipal boundaries, fire hydrants, warning sirens, etc.  When working on projects, we were starved for integration of all that information.  It used to take days and weeks to put it all together.  Today, it’s all wrapped up in one little box called Virtual Alabama.  The best part is the simplicity of using the Google interface, as opposed to different and sometimes complicated software applications for each data set, which allows our non-technical users to benefit through ease of access.”

I can’t tell you how happy you’ve made our voter registration ladies.  When they discovered the political boundaries were included, they had to have Virtual Alabama.  Originally we feared it might be too technical for them, as the extent of their previous software applications was access to an AS400.  They took to it like a duck to water.

- Kevin S. Jenkins, Communications Officer

Talladega County EMA

"Virtual Alabama has done more to move Alabama out of the 20th Century and into the 21st Century, than any single measure that I am aware of.  It is a tool I use on a daily basis for a growing number of applications, as I gain more and more familiarity with its possibilities."

-          Jim Fisher, Cullman City Planning Director

“This program has enhanced my ability to serve the public while allowing me to not leave my office.”

- Rex F. Bush, Asst. Chief Engineer, Pre-Construction

Alabama Dept. of Transportation

Clarke County has used Virtual Alabama for the following programs:

• Flu Clinic sponsored by Clarke County EMA and Alabama Dept of Public Health:  Provided aerial views of 4 sites to select the best location to hold the drive by flu clinic, decide the best method of routing vehicles into the site, thru the clinic and back into the regular flow of traffic. Outcome:  570 flu shots were given during a 4 hour period.
• The Clarke County School System has requested to use Virtual Alabama to plot their bus routes.
• The Clarke County Sheriff's Office is currently collecting data to add sex offenders to monitor for violations of probation (too close to a school, etc).
• Clarke County is working with Alabama Power to locate staging sites for equipment and personnel during and after a hurricane or major disaster.  Using Virtual Alabama, Clarke Co. EMA selected 4 sites that could potentially be used and were able to provide the exact location (lat, long) as well as an aerial view (screen capture) of the site for planning purposes.
• The City of Jackson Comprehensive Planning Committee used Virtual Alabama to search for a site for new housing development with the anticipation of growth due to ThyssenKrupp (4.19 billion dollar project, 38,000 new jobs).  Using Virtual Alabama, we were able to locate several possible sites and the parcel information (including land owner). 
• Clarke County Extension Office, Alabama Department of Conservation, Clarke County Development Foundation, Clarke County Baptist Association and the Clarke County Parks and Recreation used Virtual Alabama to locate potential sites for a shooting range.
• Virtual Alabama is loaded on the main computer in the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and will be used to plot damage reports in Clarke County.  The parcel information (including property value) and the pre-event photos are immediately available.  This will allow for a faster Preliminary Damage Report to be filed with FEMA and hopefully a faster disaster declaration. 

- Roy Waite, Director, Clarke County EMA

Clarke County Homeland Security

ADEM has a great deal of employees that use Virtual Alabama.  We use it to recon sites before we leave the office, determine property ownership, verify features of existing data, and anything else we can think up.  Virtual Alabama is so widely used throughout ADEM; it would hard to list all of the uses.  Virtual Alabama is an excellent visualization tool.  It lets us get a feeling for what is really on the ground.  We look forward to using it in the future as it evolves and improves.

- Lynn Ford, Information Systems

ADEM

“Virtual Alabama is a nearly perfect example of the melding of technology, industry, and government at all levels to solve the most critical of all emergency needs – information.  This project combines the most accurate possible data – that is developed and used locally – with both government and commercially developed technologies to provide real value to all levels of government without breaking the bank.  It is a wonderful model of how to do it right in any state.”

-   Dr. David Boyd, Division Head, Command, Control &

                                                                                                                  Interoperability

                                                                                              Director, Office of Interoperability & Compatibility

U.S. Department of Homeland Security