Natural Disasters
Flooding in Queensland, Australia, depicted
Jan 12th
Brisband Flooding and Supermarkets, by Silvia Estrada Flores, using ASTER-GDEM elevation data, OpenStreetMap imagery, Depiction, and information from many sources.
Silvia Estrada-Flores is a Depiction user and an expert in the food industry supply chain who lives in Australia. Naturally, she has been very concerned about the major flooding occurring in the state of Queensland–and, specifically, about the way the flooding is affecting grocery stores in the area.
Silvia used Depiction to first run rough simulations of the flooding and potential flooding in and around Brisbane, Queensland, using ASTER-GDEM elevation data (because she was unable to get access to the higher quality data generated by the government), and then to depict the situation facing the grocery stores in the area. She also used Depiction’s geoaligning capability to show the official flooding predictions in relation to grocery stores.
Silvia writes, “Today, I can just reassure consumers in Brisbane that there will be stores open around you. I am hoping that this map shows the areas where consumers can purchase supplies in these confusing times.” She will be writing more in the near future on the challenges of maintaining the supply chain in this situation, so pay attention to her blog, Chain of Events, if this information is important to you.
Even if you are not specifically concerned with the response of the food industry supply chain to disasters (though if you eat any food yourself, you may want to think on it at least a little!), I think Silva’s work illustrates a couple broader points. First, this is exactly the kind of thing Depiction was built for–giving powerful tools to subject-matter experts like Silvia, who may not have any experience with or access to GIS technology, but who have a need to depict the world around them in rapidly changing situations. Very few people have both the skills and resources to use high-end GIS and modelling software and the expert-level knowledge and experience in something like food industry supply chain management. And yet that field, and many others like it, have a real and abiding need for location-based knowledge, situational awareness, and the ability to ask “what if” about their community. We are very proud that Silvia was able to use Depiction to gain insights into the situation in Brisbane, and that Depiction users across the world are doing similar things within their own fields of expertise, without having to be mapping technology experts.
Second, the situation reminds us of the need for collaboration across boundaries. In her first blog post, Sylvia mentions her frustration with the unavailability of good quality elevation data:
It was difficult to find freely available information on elevation data. This can create difficulties for those planners dealing with emergency preparations that are not necessarily acting on behalf of the Government. I am aware of the National Elevation Data Framework portal, but I could not find elevation data for Queensland that is readily accessible. The process for downloading information (even in those cases where data happens to be free) is slow, due to the requirements of data licensing and so on. Not really useful when you are in a hurry to see flood damages and impact…
Here in the States, we are fortunate to have the USGS, which provides a relatively user-friendly method of obtaining good quality elevation data at multiple resolution levels through the Seamless Data Warehouse. This has allowed us to make US elevation data available as a Quickstart data set in Depiction. However, that is not the case in most parts of the world, and even here in the USA, many other crucial datasets are out of reach, depending on the locality. As Silvia notes, this presents major problems for people who are attempting to prepare for or respond to a disaster, among other things. Governments who are looking for an easy way to bolster the assistance that can be provided by the private sector during a disaster might think about making their GIS data easily accessible by the public.
Earthquake in Indiana
Dec 30th
A magnitude 3.8 earthquake shook Indiana just north of Indianapolis this morning, apparently causing little damage. Read this article for more details. The USGS has data posted here, though it apparently hasn’t been reviewed yet. This makes the Formidable Footprint (January) and Great Shakeout (April) exercises coming up seem very well timed.
I downloaded the USGS shapefile and did a quick depiction of the MMI (a relative intensity index). Indianapolis is to the south and Fort Wayne to the Northeast in this image.
Depicting the epicenter and relative feel of the quake
Drop me a line if you’d like more info on how I depicted this.
Depiction encourages all our staff, readers and users to prepare for the hazards in your area. For more info, visit Ready.gov.
Have a safe and happy New Year!
“We Need It Bigger”
Dec 3rd
I had the good fortune this week to attend the first EOC (Emergency Operations Center) drill in Anacortes, WA. The GIS manager for the city, Rob Hoxie, has designated Depiction as their EOC mapping solution, and asked me to join him in the EOC.
The planning committee spent the last two months putting this drill together. As I understand it, most of the city staff has ICS training from FEMA, so this drill put that to the test. The Fire Chief acts as the EOC director, as the city does not have an emergency manager. The scenario for the 4-hour drill was a 30-inch snowfall over 3 days, which takes out the power and home phone service for the entire city (pop. 16,000). In preparation a member of the planning committee put together a Microsoft Access database to record events and track resources. Rob also put together 2 depictions of the city: 1 with all the events in it and one “blank”. I copied those files to my computer and used an email account to send events from the full depiction to the empty on via Live Reports, as Rob placed events “manually” as the scenario unfolded. Both processes worked well, and his became more effective when the internet and cell service went out in the scenario (the IT guys killed internet and I disconnected my wireless card). Rob also made use of the “Bring to center” button in the Manage content menu to make the newly placed events flash on the screen.
One of Rob’s hopes for the event was to bring attention to the depiction, which was projected on a 5′ screen from the ceiling. For the first hour or so, not many people took not, but by hour 3, folks in the front, middle and back of the room were consulting the depiction. Their main comment? “We need it bigger!” With 34 events on the map, many flashing and text shown to describe them, 5′ was not enough space. They’ll be looking into buying a 10′ screen.
A clipping of the events simulated in the drill
This was a very effective drill, and I was impressed by the dedication, attention and knowledge of the staff. I was also glad that one of the outcomes was a decision to move away from the 5-copy carbonless-paper form to report events to the room, hoping instead to provide each area of expertise with access to the ICS database to view and update events. Depiction could also help, and I will be working closely with Rob and his colleagues in coming months to help this happen.
Latest Videos: Saving the Smithsonian & the Fourmile Fire
Nov 4th
We put this one up a while ago, but I have neglected to put it on the blog until now. And while I’m at it, here’s the video from today’s very useful webinar “Depicting the Fourmile Fire”. Lots of very practical tips and tricks on how to creatively obtain or create visualizations for disasters–and potentially other events as well.
http://www.depiction.com/files/videos/110410DepictingtheFourmileFire.flvDepiction of the Week: Fourmile Fire
Oct 26th
Fourmile FireThis week’s “Depiction of the Week” was not built by me. This was put together by Depiction Preferred Consultant and emergency volunteer Russell Deffner. In the guest post below, Russell details the story of how he put the depiction together. For more on this, and how the depiction was used, he’ll be presenting “Depicting the Fourmile Fire” on next Thursday, November 4.
On September 6, 2010, around 10 AM, a fire was reported in the 7100 block of Fourmile Canyon Drive, west of Boulder, Colorado. By about noon that Monday–Labor Day–it was clear this fire was dangerous. We get quite a bit of wildfire in Colorado, but when the local news starts breaking into normal television programming, you know that it isn’t the typical isolated fire in the wilderness; it’s either big, near homes, or both. For many reasons, I wanted a better visual of the incident than I could get by just watching the news. As a Depiction Preferred Consultant, a freelance journalist, a volunteer wildland firefighter, and the volunteer GIS specialist for the American Red Cross Mile High Chapter, I began depicting the incident as it unfolded.
The first size up to be reported on the news was at about 2 PM and it was estimated to be 200 acres. From my experience as a wildland firefighter I knew two things: first, that’s a good size for only 4 hours of burn time, and second, from the video taken by the news helicopter, it was clearly much bigger than that. About two hours later my suspicion was confirmed when the news reported the size estimate at 2200 acres.
In this depiction you can view my use of the plume element to roughly estimate the fire perimeter around this time. There are three estimates conveniently packaged in a Revealer. I soon learned that the Boulder County Office of Emergency Management was releasing information fairly rapidly on their website (which turned out to be quicker and more accurate than the local news channels) and that is where the majority of the data in this depiction came from.
Although originally I had not built this depiction with any particular use in mind, it turned out to be extremely beneficial to various groups within the Red Cross as a common operating picture. As this fire continued, many people were tragically displaced from the area (grey shaded area) and needed shelter; at one point an area inside the Boulder city limits was put on notice (the red shaded area) because a high wind warning created the potential for the fire to spread into the city. Though they have been removed from this depiction (to respect privacy), I was able to quickly add, by importing a spreadsheet, all the Red Cross shelters in and around Boulder in preparation, because the potential evacuation zone would have created roughly 30,000 additional evacuees. Luckily the fireline held and the evacuation inside city limits never happened.
Unfortunately the Fourmile fire, as it was named, eventually became the most destructive fire in Colorado history in in terms of the number structures, mostly homes, that it consumed. Inside another revealer you will find 169 red dots and 25 blue dots: it’s rather upsetting to see all the red dots, as they are the structures that were destroyed, the blue being those damaged. This information was useful to the disaster assessment folks at the Red Cross in planning the long process of helping the affected people and the communities recover.
This depiction varies slightly from the original. I have added some additional information that slipped by me in the heat of the moment, such as the airport from which the air support was operating, as well as some various community resources: the justice center, library, Humane Society, etc. that played a role in the incident. I have also removed some information (mainly addresses and shelters) to protect privacy. Lastly GeoEye, a satellite imagery company released a free high resolution satellite image of the Gold Hill area after the fire, of which a part has been added, in yet another revealer, so you can compare the scene before and after the devastation.
My heart goes out to anyone affected by wildfire and I mean no disrespect by depicting this tragic scenario. It is my belief that by sharing this depiction others will be better prepared to create a common operating picture that assists in all phases of a disaster – mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. I am honored that this depiction has assisted in this incident and has generated such response. I am also amazed that, nearly two months later, the shelf-life has yet to run out. People involved in the recovery process are still showing interest in using it. That is why I offer it for anyone to view, use, expand upon and learn from; happy depicting!
Depiction of the Week: Fourmile Fire
Exercises Gaining Popularity
Oct 21st
The Disaster Resource Guide Continuity e-Guide #355 released yesterday includes “Exercises Crucial for Effective Disaster Planning”. This is right in line with our thinking and our sponsorship of the Formidable Footprint Exercises. It’s great to see that this is an international trend! For more on Depiction and exercises, check out these upcoming and recent webinars:
- Formidable Footprint Exercise Preview, 10/28/2010
- SAR Tabletop Exercise, 8/28/2010
- Enable Tabletop Disaster Exercises with GIS Using Depiction, 9/30/2010
Please let us know if we can help you plan or coordinate a local exercise (or if you plan to use Depiction in one).
Happy Depicting!
Thoughts on Crisis Mapping
Oct 13th
Schuyler Erle, at his blog iconocla.st has a great post up with thoughts related to the International Conference on Crisis Mapping last week. We were, alas, unable to attend, but some of Shuyler’s thoughts mesh directly with what we are trying to do at Depiction, and I wanted to highlight and reflect on a couple of them.
Regarding the question of how to replicate the “miracle” of crisis mapping in Haiti during future disasters, he writes,
When relief agencies start depending on the work of the crowd, how do we ensure that the crowd shows up?
These aren’t questions with simple answers. For example, volunteer interest hinges, largely, on media attention. The tragic flooding in Pakistan this summer has adversely impacted ten times as many people as the quake in Haiti, but media attention has been far less strident, with the result that many fewer OSM volunteers have stepped up to contribute. Access to the commercial satellite imagery, which makes collaborative remote editing of OSM possible, has also been much harder to obtain, for similar reasons.
Moreover, every non-profit org, formal or ad-hoc, has to contend with volunteer fatigue. The more acute and immediate a disaster is, the easier it is to focus attention on it, which, again, has made crowdmapping Haiti far easier than Pakistan. The longer a situation wears on, the less urgency a volunteer will feel to act, and the more likely it will become that any given volunteer has other, more pressing things to do.
By the same token, casual volunteers can only be called into service so many times before they start to tune out the requests. Consequently, the “Crisis Mapping” community needs to steward its volunteer strength carefully. What criteria do we use to determine that a disaster is acute enough to warrant mounting a response?
The best way to be sure the crowd shows up regularly, and even for smaller disasters that may not currently warrant a crisis mapping response, is to make the crowd bigger. Right now, the only people who are directly involved with crisis mapping tend to be those who have access to and training for the large, complicated, expensive geospatial systems that dominate the GIS industry. Those systems are a good thing, and the experts, like Shuyler, who use them for humanitarian response are fantastic. But if your pool of volunteers consists of only these people, then there is going to be a pretty hard limit on resources.
But if you have tools that are inexpensive and easy enough to use that they extend mapping and simulation capability to everyday people, then suddenly that pool of volunteers can explode. That’s something we hope Depiction can be a part of in international crisis relief–it’s already doing that across the US, where amateur radio users, Red Cross volunteers and animal rescue teams are using it to perform basic, but vital, crisis mapping functions all the time, and few of them have any formal GIS training at all.
Shuyler goes on to describe the difficulties of Internet access, even via satellite, in a disaster area:
Point blank… any IT solution intended for use by relief workers in a disaster zone needs to work independently of the Internet. I say this, without pointing fingers, because I keep seeing humanitarian aid tools being proposed and developed by well-intended individuals and organizations — some of them *quite* large — that depend on ample network access to be of any use. Seriously, guys. Knock it off.
That same technical ingenuity needs to be put into working out how information technology can be used to coordinate humanitarian aid volunteers, both in *and* out of country, on a minimum of bandwidth, as low tech as possible.
This is another thing we feel strongly about, and it’s why Depiction is a regular old desktop application, rather than software-as-a-service or some sort of enterprise system. While it makes use of the great resources that are available online like OpenStreetMap and web services and so forth, when data is saved locally, it stays local. It functions perfectly well without the Internet–data can be manipulated, saved, imported, exported and exchanged via flash drive, local networks or carrier pigeon.
Working on low tech is also key–for years, until it recently gave up the ghost, our CEO has been running Depiction on an ancient XP laptop. As noted before, I’ve used it on just a netbook.
And, of course, if you start talking to our amateur radio users, they have lots to say on the subject of doing things when the Internet is unavailable, and many of them are using Depiction offline with tools like APRS Live, Winlink and D-STAR.
If you’d like to learn more about the capabilities of Depiction for crisis mapping, feel free to watch the webcast we did for the Crisis Mapping Network last winter, or to just download the Depiction Reader with a sample depiction or two to see what it’s all about.
Depiction of the Week: Honolulu Tsunami Simulation
Oct 11th
With the advent of the Depiction Reader, we’re starting a new feature called “Depiction of the Week”. Each week we’ll feature a depiction that you can open with either the Reader or the full version of Depiction. Are you a Depiction user with a Depiction you’d like to see featured? Click here to submit it.
This week’s depiction is this Honolulu Tsunami simulation. This depiction was originally built back on February 27, 2010. That was the day when an 8.8 magnitude quake hit just off the coast of Chile, and a tsunami warning was issued for the entire Pacific. Hawaii underwent its first tsunami evacuation since 1994, and waves of 8 to 9 feet were predicted.
Fortunately, the waves ended up being far smaller than predicted, but there were tense hours when that was unclear. During those hours, I happened to be far away from the office and my usual computers. As it happened, I was at a wedding, with nothing but my wife’s netbook. Still, I wanted to use Depiction to quickly show what the potential impact of waves of different heights could be.
Fortunately, I was able to snag some time and some wifi, and created this post with links depictions of Hilo Bay, Honolulu, and, at the request of a commenter, Kahului Bay on Maui, each with simulations of 6, 9 and 12 foot inundations.
The depiction presented here is the one created for Honolulu, with a few more elements added–specifically schools, hospitals and evacuation zones, all retrieved from the very thorough Hawaii Statewide GIS program.
A few caveats: the Depiction flood model is a very simple one, built to give a rapid potential impact (even when just using a netbook!) by showing what an increase in water level from a certain point would look like, based on the elevation data contained in the Depiction. The elevation data I used was that provided through Depiction’s Quickstart feature, and is 30-meter DEM data from the USGS (this means that the elevation was measured every 30 meters). Using higher resolution elevation data–where the elevation was measured every 10 meters, for example–would likely give different, more accurate results, though it would also increase the file size.
Depiction of the Week: Honolulu Tsunami Simulation
Depiction sponsors community exercise series
Oct 7th
Depiction is excited to be helping out with a series of online community exercises, to help groups like Citizen Corps groups, neighborhood associations and others prepare themselves for disaster. The first of these “Formidable Footprint” exercises will be on October 30, and focus on a hurricane scenario. More details from Ric Skinner, a Depiction Preferred Consultant who helped connect us with the event:
Disaster Resistant Communities Group (DRCG) will develop, facilitate and evaluate a series of disaster exercises for neighborhoods entitled “Formidable Footprint – A Neighborhood Tabletop Exercise”. The “Formidable Footprint” series of exercises will serve as an opportunity for community and neighborhood organizations, including Citizen Corps, Community Emergency Response Teams, Map Your Neighborhood Teams, and Neighborhood Associations to assess the ability of neighborhood residents to work together to prepare for, respond to and recover from a variety of natural disasters which can affect the lives of neighborhood residents.
According to Skinner, DRCG recognizes that GIS is an important tool for Situational Awareness and a Common Operational Picture. “Formidable Footprint” scenarios – hurricane, earthquake, flood, wildfire, tornado, influenza pandemic — will incorporate Depiction mapping, simulation and collaboration software (Depiction, Inc.; http://www.depiction.com) to provide players with exercise-relevant maps with which they can interact, making the exercise more real and meaningful.
We are looking forward to these events, and think they hold a great deal of promise to help prepare communities around the country.
Upcoming Webinars
Mar 23rd
Tomorrow we’re doing a special webinar exclusively for Red Cross staff and volunteers. I’ve just been doing a little work on it with Kim Buike, our webinar guru, and I’m excited about it–it’s going to be very good. If you work with the Red Cross in any capacity, whether on staff or as a volunteer, you really should check out this webinar. Register here.
Also, on April 7, we’re going to be doing a webinar for the CrisisMappers group. This is a loose group of a few hundred GIS techs, aid workers and others who have come together to do some amazing mapping work when crises hit. Their work following the earthquake in Haiti was remarkable, making enormous amounts of resources available very quickly. We’re proud to be addressing the group. Click here to both register and see previous webcasts.
