Emergency Management for the Small GIS Shop

1. Emergency Management for the Small GIS Shop Brett Lord-Castillo GIS Programmer Office of Emergency Management St Louis County Police Northeast Missouri Geospatial Workshop Monday, October 26, 2009

2. Time All that you need and exactly what you don’t have

3. Emergency Management Fundamental Concept: Geographic Information Systems is critical to all phases of Emergency Management Preparedness Planning Response Recovery

4. Preparedness – Get Trained! 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)

5. Preparedness – Your EM Agency • 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)

6. Annex or ESF? • 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)

7. Emergency Management Preparedness Planning Response Recovery

8. Recovery Timescale: Years Time period: Ongoing from end of activation Or After everyone goes home until you retire

9. Recovery – After Action Report 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

10. Recovery – Damage Assessment • 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?

11. Response Time scale: Hours to Days Time period: Declared Activation Or Everyone gets worried until everyone gets tired

12. Response – Mutual Aid Incident Support Team GISCorps International Charter Your Neighbors! Local Businesses!

13. Response - Products • 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)

14. Response - No Paper Maps! • 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!)

15. Response - Data collection • 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)

16. Response – Data Collection • Impacted Infrastructure • Closed Roads • Damaged Buildings • Utilities (they want information from you too) • Press Release information (Parcels) • Property Value • Impacted People

17. Response – The Briefing Your job as an analyst Integrated with rest of ICS briefing Time to shine (and get support later) Invite affected private groups

18. Planning 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

19. Planning – Game Plan • 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

20. Planning - Assemble your data • 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

21. Data – the hard stuff Plume modeling of Tier II EHS Sites: ALOHA Points of Distribution Government Assets Industries/Private Assets Why are these so difficult?

22. Planning - Potential Shelters 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…

23. Planning - Flood plains and DEMs 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

24. Planning - Get Help! “Out source” analysis and image processing Vendor disaster plan (who sends the request, who takes the request) Mutual aid agreements!

25. Preparedness Time scale: Now! Time period: Yesterday

26. Preparedness - Get Help! Know your neighbors Get involved in ESFs or Annexes Train other staff on basic GIS software operations (move the map and print)

27. Preparedness - Get Experience • Annual table top exercises • Help your neighbors • Incident Support Team • GIS skills in high demand • Training required!

28. IST Training Requirements 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)

29. Preparedness - Procurement • Funding opportunities • State training • EMI • Regional grants • Remember: Your planning hours can count towards Emergency Management Performance Grant planning hours

30. Preparedness – Moving forward What next? • HAZUS-MH • Web Mapping (Open source stack) • Floodplain management • Digital image processing • Your specific hazards (table tops and hands on)