Using GIS for Emergency Response

2001 Esri User Conference

Technical Paper

Paper Number: 811

Michelle Palmer

Using GIS for Emergency Response

Evacuation Traffic Information System

(ETIS)

Hurricane Floyd brought forth the largest evacuation in U.S. history affecting four states and more than three million people. The problems encountered during the evacuation gave concern over the safety of the population that was evacuating.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), United States Department of Transportation (USDOT), and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to assist in “fixing the problem” contracted PBS&J.

Several tasks were completed as part of the Southeast U.S. Hurricane Evacuation Study and a new concept was born from the study - the Evacuation Liaison Team (ELT). The ELT’s main focus is to facilitate communications between states during a multi-state hurricane event. A major function of the ELT is to let inform states as to how much traffic is anticipated to arrive in their state from another state.

To assist the ELT and help forecast where emergency transportation situations may arise the Evacuation Traffic Information System (ETIS), Formerly Travel Demand Forecast Model (TDFM), was created. ETIS shows the traffic flows within and between states, as well as information on shelter locations, road closures, hotel/motel availability, traffic count stations, etc., during an evacuation. The ETIS also incorporates data from previous hurricane evacuation studies and produces from these studies, estimations about probable roadway congestion.

When navigating to the web site users have the capability of viewing study documents, printing standard evacuation forms, or entering the ETIS system. Users entering ETIS must login in with a valid username and password. Security code or login information is used to track users on the system and set security clearances and permissions to utilize different program features, access map layers and manipulate data.

The system provides a graphical interface with button and menu selections that function with the point and click of a mouse. The base covered by the program includes Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware.

ETIS system includes the following features:

Select coastal counties that will be involved in an evacuation response.

Select an evacuation category for any coastal county (Category 1,2,3,4,5)

Enter a level of participation (in percent) for coastal counties (this rate would be based on the emergency managers knowledge of the storm and evacuating population as well as information residences are receiving via television and radio.)

Enter an Evacuation Type (Mandatory or Voluntary)

Enter a percentage of estimated evacuees to travel in various directions (N,S,E, and W). This automatically determined from previous behavioral studies derived from past hurricane events.

Select a state-to-state traffic button that shows a listing by state and evacuation route of the number of evacuating vehicles leaving the State and which State they are entering.

Acceptance of real time traffic count information

Other general program:

Zoom to full extent and zoom in or out and panning.

Map/Screen printing to system printers or exporting to digital files.

User permission sensitive data editing.

Query ability on all database information and clear or reverse selection.

Query locations (Road name, intersection, school, county, etc.)

Labels are scaled appropriately.

All lists of data displayed on screen and are able to be printed to printer or saved as text files.

All buttons and menu choices display their function at the bottom of the screen and show a brief help statement when the cursor is held over the item.