The April 27 th 2011 Tornados in The City of Tuscaloosa Jeff Motz, GISP, CGCIO GIS Manager City of Tuscaloosa

County seat of Tuscaloosa County Home of The University of Alabama Home of Mercedes Benz

Tuscaloosa GIS before the storm The City of Tuscaloosa - 1,300 employees GIS efforts evolved from CADD work Growing popularity of GIS, especially web- based application Distributed responsibility of data updates GIS Division a part of Information Technology Department

Incident Command System standardized, on-scene, all-hazards incident management approach that: Allows for the integration of facilities, equipment, personnel, procedures, and communications operating within a common organizational structure. Enables a coordinated response among various jurisdictions and functional agencies, both public and private. Establishes common processes for planning and managing resources.

Emergency Management Institute

Incident Command System

Gaining Experience Trained using NIMS at non-emergency events College football games Concerts Triathlon Airshows

The Blizzard of 2011

The April 15 th Tornado The Sugarland Tornado

The Morning of the Storm

Storm Damage DESTROYED: EMA Fire Station 4 Police East Precinct Environmental Services Dept. Salvation Army Red Cross

Richard M. Curry Building EMA/Environmental Services

Incident Command Center

…a little help from my friends. Overwhelming GIS needs Immediate Short Term Long Term

Keith Cooke, Esri

Karyn Tareen, GeoCove

Assess-Report-Map: How a GIS tool was used for Tuscaloosa's Damage Assessment

Agenda Where We Started What We Did What Went Right What We Learned

Where we started.. GIS Data ArcGIS Server tiled mapservices Addressing ArcSDE / ArcGIS Server inside the firewall Hardware Esri / Geocove Personal devices (5) Loaned devices

What we did Round 1 Installed Esri software in DMZ Loaded damage assessment schema and base data Built deployment packages Round 2++ Setup COP Viewer / reporting tool Added more data to deployment packages

Screenshot of Round 2 Field App (note, basemap is still available)

Screenshot of Round 3 Field App Addition of post Tornado Imagery

Results 4207 Residential Structures $172,150,420 in residential loss Assessments automated in 5 days Incident Commander assigned whatever you need resources to GIS Manager to complete process using tool

What Went Right Referencing Existing Data COP Photos Automation of Assessments

What Could Have Been Better… PROCESS Assessment Grids Deploy immediately Hardware provisioning Training

Process, Process, Process Who Multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional Volunteers What Windshield assessments Safety / Damage / Both Worksheet assessments Public Health Search and Rescue When Windshield vs. Worksheets Concurrent vs. consecutive How Consider hardware

Tool Considerations Typing? How many clicks? GIS based / no integration Sometimes connected Open development environment / fat finger buttons! Feed the COP Reporting?

Contact Copyright 2011 Geocove, Inc. All rights reserved. Karyn Tareen x 701 Visit us at Esri/Geocove booth in Exhibit Hall

Some of lifes best lessons are learned at the worst times.

Software – ELA worth the price Tier one is for towns and counties with populations up to 25,000. Tier two is for cities and counties with populations between 25,001 and 50,000. Tier three is for cities and counties with populations between 50,001 and 100,000

Hardware/Network WiFi unreliable Prepare with drills and exercises Laptops, Tablets ready to deploy Hardcopies sometimes the best solution

Management Be ready to accept help when offered

Data

Leadership

Learn from other peoples mistakes; you wont live long enough to make them all yourself.