Holding Back The Water - Southwest Florida Turns To VTScada For Critical Flood Control Systems

Abstract
Over 4.5 million people depend on the Southwest Florida Water Management District for water conservation and flood protection, especially during the six month hurricane season. Water conservation and flood control involves carefully holding and channelling surface water using a system of gates, canals, and reservoirs.

When Mike Bartlett became the SCADA Systems Administrator, it was determined that the current SCADA system was not performing adequately. A search began for a single supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) software package that could communicate with their current hardware and would be flexible enough for the team to build upon as the district continued to grow. Additionally, the software vendor would need to be able to provide 24/7 access to technical support for six months of the year. In this article Mike Bartlett describes some of the strategies he and the team used to get the exact SCADA system they needed.