Date: March 26, 2001
| For Release: Immediate
Date: March 26, 2001 |
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"TWENTY-SIX COUNTIES TO GET WEATHER RADAR DROPS" |
RALEIGH - Emergency Management officials in 26 eastern North Carolina counties will soon have access to faster weather information thanks to a public/private partnership known as "Radar-Net."
Radar-Net and is a cooperative venture between WITN-TV in Washington, NC, the Eastern Carolina Bank and University Health Systems (Pitt County Memorial Hospital). Radar-Net provides real-time Doppler radar coverage and other weather information from the National Weather Service to these counties.
A Radar-Net computer in each of the 26 county emergency operations centers receives the transmitted broadcast signal from WITN-TV that includes the real-time radar signal data from WITN-TV's Doppler radar. The data is displayed on the computer screen with detailed maps of that particular county and area.
"These counties will be able to track approaching storms, thus giving them added warning time," says Eric Tolbert, director of North Carolina Emergency Management. "We are indebted to WITN-TV, Eastern Carolina Bank and Pitt Memorial Hospital for helping provide this community service."
Radar-Net uses a minute-by-minute display of WITN-TV's Doppler radar overlaid on a sophisticated geographic information system (or GIS) base map that permits emergency management officials to zoom in to areas as small as a city block. This enables officials to locate the worst part of a storm and determine where emergency responders may be most need. It also enables emergency responders to be dispatched to areas where they are needed, without being sent into the path of an on-coming storm.
The following is a list of counties covered by WITN-TV's Doppler radar: Beaufort, Bertie, Camden/Pasquotank, Carteret, Chowan, Craven, Dare, Duplin, Edgecombe, Greene, Halifax, Hertford, Hyde, Jones, Lenoir, Martin, Nash, Northampton, Onslow, Pamlico, Perquimans, Pitt, Tyrrell, Washington, Wayne, Wilson
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