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Track: Emergency Management and Public Safety
William Samuels
SAIC
1710 Goodridge Drive
McLean, VA 22102
Telephone: 703-556-7074
Fax: 703-356-8408
E-mail: samuels@zippy.saic.com
Jonathan Pickus, Paul Bryant, Adrian Linz
Development of an Automated Tool to Provide Logistics Support for Natural Disasters
Defining Issue: Identification of mobilization sites and commodities to support disaster relief efforts is a critical issue in emergency response. GIS Solution: FEMA's Initial Response Report (IRR) provides emergency managers with answers to the following disaster relief questions: (1) what resources are needed, (2) who are the potential sources, and (3) where are the resources to be delivered. The IRR is a module of the Consequence Assessment Tool Set (CATS) software, which estimates damage to the population and infrastructure from natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes. Methodology: Based on the extent of damage predicted by the CATS models, the selection of suitable mobilization sites is performed based on the following criteria: (1) distance from nearest airstrip, (2) warehouse space between 40,000 and 80,000 square feet, and (3) federal facility with physical security measures in place. Up-to-date coverages of vendors capable of providing disaster relief commodities such as ice,
building materials, bottled water, and so forth is maintained through the use of the Equifax business database. These coverages are accessed by the IRR software to provide locations of local sources of relief supplies. Software: The IRR application was written in Avenue. The CATS software is a combination of AML, Avenue, FORTRAN, C, and UNIX shell scripts.
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