—Daniel Mellott, Burk-Kleinpeter, Inc.
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Plaquemines Parish, LA is a peaceful fishing, orange growing and oil producing community located on both sides of the last 82 miles of the Mississippi River. In June 1998, a comprehensive feasibility study and plan to develop GIS technology was commissioned by the Parish. Despite many positive cost benefits, year after year, implementation of the GIS was out prioritized by other projects deemed more critical. Then, on that fateful day on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina changed the priorities as the Parish became ground-zero for the initial landfall of the storm with the eye wall splitting the Parish in half. Immediately after the storm, FEMA requested information from the Parish to determine the extent and magnitude of damage and loss. Unfortunately, over half of the paper records were destroyed and what little electronic data existed proved inconsequential. Information on structures did not exist and utility drawings were fragmented and outdated. Engineering personnel had to manually survey and plot information to pass on to FEMA. The process was slow and grueling and, in some areas, is still going on. In June 2007, the Parish council revived the idea of developing GIS by passing an ordinance to not only perform a followup feasibility study to make the 1998 study current, but to immediately begin implementation of a comprehensive GIS. In the study, the Parish outlined and prioritized the most critical GIS data needed for emergency response and drafted a phased approach for developing the GIS data over a 4 or 5 year period. The first implementation phase included development of road centerlines for E911 along with critical landmarks that would assist responders in finding locations in a parish that was devoid of more than 50% of its signage. Also included was the start of developing parcel data that could be integrated with the Parish Tax Assessor data. The second phase, which is currently in progress and scheduled for completion in June 2009, includes completing the development of the parcel data, planimetric data such as structures, paved areas, canals, etc., levee data from FEMA survey data, and wastewater infrastructure. Implementation of ArcGIS Server technology to make the GIS data available throughout the Parish has also been completed. Rest assured, if another catastrophic event does occur, the Parish will be prepared to provide comprehensive and accurate information to first responders as well as state and federal agencies.