FLEMING ISLAND – Imagine the rush of terror and uncertainty when a family member who has autism, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease or a traumatic brain injury is suddenly missing.

The Clay County Sheriff’s Office is now collecting information on vulnerable residents so that they can be found quickly and brought back home safely.

Because every minute counts.

After a year of research, planning and training, Sheriff Michelle Cook said Monday the agency now offers the Clay Watch program to build a database of information on individuals prone to wandering.

The program allows family members to voluntarily provide information about loved ones to the sheriff’s office, which will help the agency send immediate alerts to deputies. The time saved by providing a photo, description, background, and tendencies can lead to a quicker response and outcome.

“I’m going to give you a specific example. We have a person in Clay County who tends to wander away, and this person likes to climb trees,” Cook said. “We also have a whole lot of new deputies on the street. So, if we have this person registered in the Clay Watch database, they (deputies) are sent to the area or the house because the person has gone missing again. They can pull up the Clay Watch registry and look at the characteristics of the person who likes to wander and see that this person likes to climb trees.

“You know, some of these folks have challenges where they’re drawn to water. Or they’re drawn to retention ponds. So having information ahead of time can potentially save a life.”

Family members can decide how much information they want to reveal. And while the information is secured, Cook said the more her agency knows, the quicker they narrow their search.

“When we find missing people wandering the street, and they are not sure who they are or where they live, we can check the Clay Watch registry to see if we can locate them,” she said. “Again, if any individual would like to register a loved one but is unsure of how to do it or would like some additional information, you are more than welcome to stop by our workstation (at the Middleburg Substation), and we will be happy to have somebody walking through the registration process.”

“The program also includes how a person communicates and their aggression and anxiety triggers,” said Lt. Mike Layne.

“One of the hardest things is checking somebody who cannot communicate with us,” he said. “If we check in with somebody walking down the sidewalk and can’t identify themselves, we wanted to be able to search based on any of the descriptors we have, the neighborhood we were in, their physical description, what characteristics they were presenting to us.

“We have a very robust search system built into this. We can take any of that, and it will provide a list of the folks and their photographs for anybody meeting that criteria. Then, we can simply the process. It’s taken a lot of work for us to get there.”

To register for Clay Watch, visit claysheriff.com, where you can complete the online registration form or download and print the form for submission in person at the Middleburg Substation at 3799 Irvin Ct. For additional information about the program, contact Layne at (904) 213-6177 or visit the website for updates and resources.