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Mobile Technology Transforms Emergency Management in Queensland Australia

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Mobile Technology Transforms Emergency Management in Queensland Australia Mobile Technology Transforms Emergency Management in Queensland Australia New tools improve situational awareness during flood disaster By Josh McDaniel Summer 2013 December 2010 was Queensland, Australia’s wettest on record, with record high rainfall totals set in 107 locations across the state for the month. Flooding began in early December and then intensified later in the month as Cyclone Tasha swept across the coast. By December 30, vast areas of southern and central Queensland were flooded, including Brisbane, Rockhampton, Emerald, Bundaberg, Dalby, Toowoomba, and Ipswich. Unrelenting rains continued through January 2011 and then Cyclone Yasi roared ashore on February 3, 2011 packing 180 mph winds and a deluge of rain. Damage from the storm and subsequent flooding expanded beyond the area impacted in December and January, covering a huge swath of Queensland. At the peak of the floods, 11,900 homes and 2,500 businesses were completely flooded in Brisbane. Another 14,000 homes and 2,500 businesses were partially flooded. Thirty-seven people died in the floods and major damage occurred to homes, The town of Bundaberg at peak flood level. businesses and infrastructure. Credit: Mark Wallace Final tallies put the damage at $5.8 billion (Australian). 1 When the flooding began, the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service (QFRS) deployed a mobile GIS system to collect information that would give incident commanders and field responders important information to direct resources in initial response. Data was collected from the air and on the ground and fed into unique geospatial systems that provided real-time situational awareness of the damage caused by the storms and the flooding. “Before, it often took days and weeks to get information from the field to the people who need it in emergency response,” says Mark Wallace, GIS Unit Manager, Queensland Fire and Rescue Service, Department of Community Safety. “Now we can provide data end-to-end (from the person collecting data in the field to the commander sitting in the ops center) in a matter of seconds or minutes in some cases.” The Aerial Total Operational Mapping (A-TOM) systems were originally developed by QFRS’s GIS unit in 2006 to capture fire line locations with tablet computers connected to GPS antennas. During the 2011/2012 floods, observers in aircraft used touch-screen mobile devices to collect geospatial information that upon landing was immediately relayed back to the Incident Control Center (ICC) and made visible to coordinating staff. Emergency staff used A-TOM to precisely determine the broad extent of water damage View of the Situational Awareness Map (SAM) used by the agencies in the Queensland Department of Community Safety. Credit: Mark Wallace 2 to homes, businesses, and infrastructure as well as road washouts and downed power lines. This intelligence was used to prioritize evacuations, determine road closures, and plan power restoration. The system also assisted with decisions regarding location of emergency medical facilities, food distribution, and temporary shelters. After the floodwaters began to recede and search and rescue teams were able to get on the ground, the teams used mobile devices to carry out detailed geocoded Rapid Damage Assessments (RDA) in the most critical locations identified using A-TOM. The data included assessments of relative damage to individual structures as well as remaining hazards on site including electrical, sewage, animals, downed trees and potential landslides. This data was uploaded to a Situational Awareness Map (SAM) for local governments and disaster management agencies. The Rapid Damage Assessment crews worked in teams of two. As they assessed each property, the mobile devices autopopulated much of the data related to each visited address. The field assessor then responded to a series of questions regarding damage. One of the key questions in the flood was whether the water had reached above the level of electrical sockets, as this was a major factor that determined how soon evacuees could return to their homes. Screen capture from Total Operational Mapping (TOM) COP Flex viewer located in the Brisbane State Operations Center depicting some of the first live transmission from the field. Pink area indicates predicted high water level. Credit: Mark Wallace 3 “One of our priorities is to identify neighborhoods and homes that have received less damage,” says Wallace. “We want to get people back in their homes and take pressure off of emergency services, which is having to provide shelter and food for thousands of people.” Twice a day, the teams came back to an ICC and downloaded data into a laptop connected to the command center by satellite (Wallace says that QFRS is using satellite communications more and more since telephone networks tend to become clogged during emergencies). As the data is downloaded it is immediately live and viewable in Total Operational Mapping (TOM) and SAM. “Everyone sees it,” says Wallace. "The current Mobile GIS replaced a paper map-based workflow," Wallace said. "Before, someone would mark up maps illustrating damage while in the air flying reconnaissance or carrying-out surveys on the ground. These maps would then have to be transported back to an ICC where they would be analyzed and incorporated into existing information. This was very slow, and it would often be days or weeks before the information was put in the hands of people who needed it." Wallace says that the mobile GIS system has improved operational and strategic planning. At the strategic level it is helping with questions such as, how many people need evacuation, food needs, and distribution of medical supplies. At the operational level, it is helping with the deployment of resources, identifying the hotspots, which might require allocation of staff and supplies. QFRS is also finding that the data collected by the system can be used to provide updates to the media and to the public. Policy-makers are also using the data to create summary reports and baseline assessments to aid in the recovery phase. Wildfire Applications Tom Patterson, a wildland fire specialist with ESRI, sees real potential for incorporating real-time mobile mapping similar to the system used in Queensland into wildland fire management in the U.S. However, he also sees a few barriers that inhibit the implementation of geospatial technologies on the fireline, specifically tradition, policy and perceptions. Patterson says that in order to create a system that works as effectively as the QFRS mobile system, we have to get away from the 12-hour planning cycle mentality that drives much of fire management in the U.S. “I've been on incidents in which Division Supervisors will not deviate from the Incident Action Plan assignment even though it was obvious that things have changed since it was written the night before,” says Patterson. “QFRS is so effective because they have the means to adapt immediately and change priorities based on the current situation.” 4 Policy can also be a large obstacle. Patterson says that the inability of cooperators to interface with agency networks in joint operations is a hindrance to effective response. In addition, due to security concerns, federal agency personnel are not given administrative rights to their own government-issued computers, also making it difficult to connect to needed networks. Finally, Patterson believes that culture and perceptions are a hindrance to the use of geospatial technologies in U.S. fire management. “There are many myths about the use of GIS by firefighters in the field,” says Patterson. "You hear, It's too difficult to learn, It's too costly, or You have to have a masters degree in geography and an $18,000 plotter to make it work. Well, the QFRS firefighters have dispelled all those misperceptions and the use of geospatial technologies has been part of their standard operating procedure for many years.” Patterson says that cost is no longer an issue, since we now have the capability to map a 40,000 acre wildfire on a cell-phone. In wilderness areas where there are no cell towers, mobile devices will cache fire perimeter data and transmit it as soon as coverage is received. Patterson adds that the use of Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) terminals like the one QFRS uses enables field personnel the capability to stay connected anywhere in the world. There are currently efforts underway to incorporate mobile technologies into U.S. fire management. A recent Advances in Fire Practice article profiling the Geospatial Equipment and Technology Application (GETA) Group shows that a number of ways forward have been identified. As QFRS has demonstrated quite clearly, these technology systems are accessible, cost-effective, and an improvement over past and current practices. US fire management agencies can now look to the model that QFRS has provided to similarly transform fire management in the U.S. in the coming years. Advances in Fire Practice is a sub-site of wildfirelessons.net and is focused on bringing efforts and ideas to the forefront that leaders in the fire management, practice, and research communities have identified as innovative and widely applicable. It provides access to critical and proven fire information and resources. Advances in Fire Practice can be reached under Resources at www.wildfirelessons.net. The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center actively promotes a learning culture for the purpose of enhancing safe and effective work practices in the entire U.S. wildland Fire community. It is located at the National Advanced Fire & Resource Institute in Tucson, Arizona. 5 .
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