| Abstract: |
Within the last few years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has experienced a movement of migrating GIS tools into the hands of the end-user for emergency response situations. As many in the geospatial industry have found in recent years, the non-technical user community has become more and more familiar with geospatial concepts and tools through programs and websites like Google Earth and Google Maps, Microsoft Virtual Earth, and many others. During an emergency response, time is of the essence and often by the time a final map created in the traditional GIS software reached the end-user it was no longer relevant or needed. Using these new tools has allowed FEMA's Geospatial Intelligence Units to respond more quickly and efficiently to information requests, ultimately increasing the efficiency of the other response and recovery elements. |