NEARC 2005: Abstracts

NEARC 2005 Program Abstracts

By Track :

TRACK: Public Safety/Homeland Security

GIS and Preplanning for First Responders

Vicki Schmidt, Maine Fire Training & Education

Preplanning has long been used to determine the most efficient and effective means for emergency response. With Hurricane Charley, earthquakes and tsunamis making headlines it's easy to overlook the need to plan for local emergencies. But recent school shootings, nightclub fires and a growing clandestine lab problem, prove it can happen here. For the citizens immediately involved with an incident, and the responders that arrive within the first few minutes, planning for everyday hazards is crucial. Until recently, bringing GIS to the first responder in rural areas was a challenge for many emergency organizations. As access to technologies improve, GIS is playing an integral part in preplanning the management of everyday incidents to those involving critical infrastructure and target hazards. Training first responders and implementing GIS is just one way small towns are organizing to ensure ôhometown securityö. This presentation will look at the steps for combining locally based GIS data with electronic preplans for emergency response.

StatEwide Incident Management System (SWIMS)

Bob White, ENP State of Maine, Office of GIS

Emergency Management within the State of Maine is the responsibility of our State Emergency Management Agency, 16 county Emergency Management Agencies, and 917 Civil Divisions. Fast effective communication, coordination and data sharing are vital for proper incident management (command and control) and mitigation. Incident managers have problems integrating existing streams of information to coordinate response activities and effectively manage field workers because a centralized electronic clearinghouse for the uniform exchange of live data from existing remote sensor networks does not exist. Maine currently has river gauge monitors, automated weather stations, an ocean buoy network, and road condition sensors that produce data in numerous forms and formats. In addition, new and emerging data streams are being deployed today that can save minutes and lives. Data automatically transmitted by automatic crash notification technology is a good example. An integrated approach is needed to provide a single view of these important data. Based on Maine's enterprise solutions for database and geographic information systems, we propose to develop selected modules for a State Wide Incident Management System (SWIMS) as a centralized GIS-based clearinghouse for data from existing remote sensor networks.

Applying Municipal GIS Datasets to Homeland Security

Gary Volta & Mary House, Woodard & Curran

There are countless opportunities to apply GIS technologies to homeland security issues. Well known areas include emergency preparedness, emergency response, modeling and risk assessment, however new application areas are constantly evolving. This presentation will discuss homeland security related applications focused at the municipal level that can be derived from a municipality's existing GIS data. This is a very viable scenario for municipalities to utilize homeland security funding to further their GIS efforts. As an example, multiple GIS technologies can be utilized to interpret and depict GIS data related to the vulnerability of critical City assets as related to business continuity, life safety, property protection and reputation management in the case of a catastrophic event. This type of application provides valuable information to planners and responders to understand the highest impact areas in an effort to effectively plan and manage resource deployment.

The Role of the Digital Camera In Emergency Response

Andrew Freckmann, EarthData International

The migration of aerial imaging and mapping into an all digital environment holds great promise to geospatial data users through improved image quality, positional accuracy and flexibility in product offerings.2003 was the first year when high resolution digital aerial camera systems were widely used in the geospatial marketplace and over the course of the past two years, this technology has been repeatedly tested and proven to be a valuable tool to support planners and emergency managers during natural or man-made disasters.This presentation will detail the circumstances, the project plan that was developed and the resulting geospatial products that were produced in response to 2 major disasters. Both disasters, Hurricane Isabel and the vast wild fires that struck southern California, both involved the need to map large areas and to produce and deliver the completed map data very rapidly with both projects exceeding 2,000 square miles and completed within 30 days.Digital imaging technology also produces a variety of ancillary products that have value in emergency response but are also valuable in disaster preparedness planning and analysis.The presentation will provide an overview of the technology, a description of the planning and logistics of a disaster response mission and examples of the types of imagery and products that can be produced.

Deploying and Maintaining GIS for Statewide E9-1-1

Bob White, ENP State of Maine, Office of GIS

The State of Maine is in the process of implementing a GIS bassed application that can be used in the E9-1-1 PSAP's to locate a call, find directions, or to locate a wireless E9-1-1 call. The process to get us to this point has been long and difficult. Learn from Maine's experience of what it takes to deploy a statewide data set that supports geocoding, and routing. Discussions will cover hardware configurations, database tricks to improve performance, update procedures and a demo of the end result.

Mapping for Public Health: Approaches and tools for event and incidence rate analysis

Tom Harrington & Brian Hebert Applied Geographics, Inc.

State Departments of Health maintain a diversity of data having location attributes - births, deaths, chronic disease, workplace injuries, and so forth. Local boards of health similarly collect and track a variety of types of public health case data - hepatitis, West Nile virus, Lyme disease, other infectious disease, and so forth. Analysis of this data focuses on the calculation of incidence rates based on reference to age-adjusted population data, evaluation of spatial and temporal patterns of events and rates, and the association of events with geographic features. A variety of tools and software packages support such analysis but their integration with GIS is highly variable. This presentation discusses these limitations, and describes an effort underway at two state departments of health to build a more integrated capability for incident rate calculation and mapping in ArcGIS. The discussion provides a framework for making more efficient use of public health case data.

Assisting the Flood Response in Burlington County, New Jersey

Merrilee Torres, Burlington County Department of Information Technology, GIS Section

In July 2004, Burlington County, NJ experienced a rainfall event of 6-13 inches over a 12-14 hour period that caused many dams to fail and numerous others to be damaged. The resulting flooding occurred overnight hindering public notification. Hundreds of individuals and families were evacuated or displaced from their homes in an area that is not accustomed to such disaster. A presidential declaration later deemed the area a federal disaster zone. Although the GIS Section of Burlington County's Department of Information Technology has been supporting the Emergency Management Office in varying capacities for several years, this was the first time GIS support was called upon to aid in disaster response and recovery. This presentation will recount the GIS Section's experience in supporting the Emergency Operations Center and various County departments in the days, weeks, and months following the flood. Keywords: flood, emergency response, disaster recovery

Delivering GIS Data to Non-GIS Users: Introducing the GEOBOOK

Bill Elliott, Sanborn

The GEOBOOK is an excellent medium for digitally distributing community plans, emergency response procedures and project reports with imbedded ESRI GIS data to non-GIS users and to the public. The GEOBOOK uses a digital book concept to give non-GIS users fast, easy and intuitive access to complex GIS information. The application presents data on a computer screen in book form, allowing users to quickly access descriptive information and to interact with map data using embedded GIS tools. The GEOBOOK makes use of ESRI's MapObjects and custom controls for its look-and-feel. A GEOBOOK Author Toolkit is used to develop and customize each GEOBOOK, but is not required to operate the final product or to update pages in a published GEOBOOK. This presentation will describe the GEOBOOK, describe how books are created using the Author Toolkit, and provide GEOBOOK examples from various user organization. The GEOBOOK is well suited to support Public Safety operations.