With the recent historical snowfall event, 22” over a 16 hour timeframe, it became a safety issue for Elk Grove Village Firefighters to know the location of their fire hydrants and have access to them. Many fire hydrants had been completely covered by snow because of the amount of snow and plowing efforts from the village, counties, and state.
To assist their fire response the GIS (Geographic Information System) Department provided each fire station a hard and soft copy map showing the location of the hydrants in their district. As time allowed, fire personnel then focused on uncovering and clearing snow away from fire hydrants located at the corners of each block where they were most likely to have been completely covered by snow pushed off of the roadways.