Northeast Missouri Geospatial Workshop
Monday, October 26, 2009
Brett Lord-Castillo
GIS Programmer
Office of Emergency Management
St Louis County Police
All that you need and
exactly what you don’t have
Preparedness
Planning
Response
Recovery
Fundamental Concept: Geographic
Information Systems is critical to all phases of
Emergency Management
http://training.fema.gov
• Online Independent Study
ICS-100/IS-100 Intro to Incident Command System
ICS-200/IS-200 Basic ICS
ICS-700/IS-700 National Incident Management System
ICS-800/IS-800 National Response Framework
IS-704 NIMS Communications and Information Management
• Emergency Management Institute (“Free”)
HAZUS Courses
ICS-300/G300 Intermediate ICS (For Incident Support Team)
ICS-400/G400 Advanced ICS (For Incident Support Team)
 Your
EM agency
• Which department is EM based in?
• Who is your EM director?
Part time or Full time?
Home department?
• How is it funded?
(Especially Emergency Management Performance Grant)
 What
are they?
 Which does your county have?
 Where do you fit in?
• Fit yourself in if you have to
Annex: Inside your department
ESF #5: Emergency Management function (IS-805)
• Create responsibilities (You’ll need the help)
Preparedness
Planning
Response
Recovery
Timescale: Years
Time period: Ongoing from end of activation
Or
After everyone goes home until you retire
Participate!
How were you successful?
What problems did you encounter?
How did you solve them?
(Or what prevented you from solving them?)
What was missing?
Not “who dropped the ball”
Address all four phases!
http://www.llis.dhs.gov
 Hardest
part of Emergency Management
• Everyone wants to go home
• Time critical - FEMA sets the timeline
 Not
your job to assess damage
• Your job is information (and some answers)
 Buildings to inspect
 Routes for inspectors
 Population affected?
 Where was the damage?
Time scale: Hours to Days
Time period: Declared Activation
Or
Everyone gets worried until everyone gets tired
 Incident
Support Team
 GISCorps
 International Charter
 Your Neighbors!
 Local Businesses!
 Digital
maps whenever possible
• Web mapping if you can (Google Maps)
• PDFs
• GIS Software (if you have the time/people)
• (Keep control of your software, especially when the
news is there)
 Why?
• Paper maps take time and supplies
• Paper maps answer one question at a time
 Exception:
Paper maps for operations
• Information, not planning
• People in the field (Find a laminator!)
 Impact
Zone – Why?
• Position resources (Emergency Response)
• Search and Rescue (First Responders)
• Protection (Public Safety)
• Cleanup (Public Works)
Considering using National Grid
(but everyone needs to know how to use it)
 Impacted
Infrastructure
• Closed Roads
• Damaged Buildings
• Utilities (they want information from you too)
• Press Release information (Parcels)
 Property Value
 Impacted People
Your job as an analyst
 Integrated
with rest of ICS briefing
 Time to shine (and get support later)
 Invite affected private groups
Time Scale: Ongoing
Time period: Beginning of threat until end of activation
Or
From the end of the last incident to the end of the next incident
 Manage
your hours!
• When are the operational hours?
• Who handles map requests and when?
• Have time for briefings
• Mornings will be busy on multiday activations
 Manage
your assets
• Software (ask for help from your vendors)
• Hardware (ask for help from everyone)
• Printers (ask for help from anyone)
• Consolidate and collect instead of maintaining
 Base
data and base map
• Streets, Parcels, Buildings, Railroads, Demographics
 Special
Populations – MSDIS!
• Hospitals, Nursing Homes, Schools*, & Daycares
 Tier
II EHS
• You have an inventory, geocode it
 Pipelines
• National Pipeline Inventory
 Plume
modeling of Tier II EHS Sites: ALOHA
 Points of Distribution
 Government Assets
 Industries/Private Assets
Why are these so difficult?
Parks
Churches
Non-governmental organizations
 Don’t forget animals!
 Pay attention to your hazard zones
• Flood plains, EHS Sites, Earthquake liquefaction zones,
Frequent fire, Tsunami, Locusts, Plague, Kindergartners…
Where are they?
 FEMA
 USGS
 Consortiums
 Local
knowledge!
 Communicate with the DFIRM engineering firms!
Remember!
Emergency management planning only!
Sandbags are “cheap”
Sandbag cleanup is expensive
 “Out
source” analysis and image processing
 Vendor disaster plan (who sends the request,
who takes the request)
 Mutual aid agreements!
Time scale: Now!
Time period: Yesterday
 Know
your neighbors
 Get involved in ESFs or Annexes
 Train other staff on basic GIS software
operations (move the map and print)
 Annual
table top exercises
 Help your neighbors
 Incident Support Team
• GIS skills in high demand
• Training required!
http://training.fema.gov
ICS-100/IS-100 Intro to Incident Command System
ICS-200/IS-200 Basic ICS
ICS-300/G300 Intermediate ICS (For Incident Support Team)*
ICS-400/G400 Advanced ICS (For Incident Support Team)*
ICS-700/IS-700 National Incident Management System
ICS-800/IS-800 National Response Framework
*EMI Only Courses!
(But GIS is in high demand)
 Funding
opportunities
• State training
• EMI
• Regional grants
 Remember:
Your planning hours can count
towards Emergency Management Performance
Grant planning hours
What next?
• HAZUS-MH
• Web Mapping (Open source stack)
• Floodplain management
• Digital image processing
• Your specific hazards (table tops and hands on)