Emergency Preparedness for GIS (1/2 day morning workshop)
Monday, October 23, 2017, 8:30 AM-12:00 Noon
Instructors: Theresa Martin, GISP
Attendance at this workshop will offer: 3.5 AICP credits
Description: Today, natural and man-made disasters are becoming more complex, costly, and frequent. First responders and emergency managers are relying more and more on geospatial technology to prepare for, respond to, and recover from these disasters. There is a pressing need for cross-training on the non-technical disciplines GIS staff is being asked to support. Specifically, public safety (emergency management, police and fire services) and the rigid work flows which accompany their daily duties, often prove foreign to those unfamiliar with these activities.
To accommodate their needs in a time-sensitive situation, our experience is that the key is to arm the GIS professional with enough knowledge of emergency management and first responder activities so they can effectively discern the needs of the incident commander and quickly produce the spatial document(s) which best support decision making in an emergency.
This workshop is divided into two parts:
- First, a brief overview of the Incident Command structure and the National Incident Management System which provide the framework under which public safety and homeland security operations occur. We will introduce the Geospatial Concept of Operations and the integration of geospatial technology across the mission areas (Protection, Prevention, Mitigation, Response and Recovery). Throughout we will show common situations at the local level specific to each discipline and showcase studies/examples of how GIS is used to support each. We will also discuss relevant data sets to public safety, resources and emerging technologies, and suggestions for the integration of GIS into their organizations disaster preparedness planning.
- The second part of the workshop will include an interactive tabletop exercise that will both educate the GIS analyst and provide take away knowledge that can be implemented in their own organizations.
Learning Objectives:
- Understand the roles of emergency management and the first responder disciplines and how they differ.
- Communicate a basic understanding of the federal level emergency response structure.
- Examine the role of GIS in the public safety disciplines including examples of real-world solutions
Cost: One full-day or half-day workshop is included with full conference registration; $195 if only attending a workshop or adding a second half-day workshop
