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Montgomery Township demonstrates how to use its 'Adopt a Hydrant' web app
Summary
Montgomery Township GIS demonstrated the Adopt a Hydrant web application, showing how residents can locate available hydrants on a map, claim one through an edit form, keep contact information private, and optionally give the hydrant a nickname to encourage volunteer snow clearing.
GIS Jen, host of The GIST for Montgomery Township, demonstrated the township’s Adopt a Hydrant web application and walked listeners through how to find, claim and register a hydrant.
The application is reachable from the Fire Department of Montgomery Township’s website under the Fire Safety menu. “It starts with a splash screen describing what is expected of someone adopting a hydrant, as well as directions for how to use the application,” GIS Jen said, and users click Enter to get to an interactive map.
On the map, hydrants are shown as colored points: “The blue points are the hydrants that have yet to be adopted and the red points are hydrants that have already been adopted,” GIS Jen said. She described a legend tab in the app for that color scheme and additional info and edit tabs that display details about a selected hydrant and let users submit an adoption.
To adopt a hydrant, users search an address, zoom to the area and use selection tools on the edit tab to click a chosen hydrant; the edit window then opens an adopt-a-hydrant form. “For the first question, click the adopted button, then fill in your contact information,” GIS Jen said. She emphasized that “this contact information is for internal use only and will not be visible to the public,” and that the fire department uses the contact information to send reminders and thank-yous.
The app also offers an optional nickname field for hydrants. GIS Jen noted the nickname can encourage maintenance in winter: “I'd be more likely to shovel a 3 foot radius around a hydrant if I said to myself, I need to go shovel out Monzilla rather than I need to go shovel out that hydrant across the street.”
The segment closed with a reminder to visit Montgomery Township’s website for more information about GIS and the Adopt a Hydrant application. The transcript provided for this episode does not include a date for the recording or publication.
