Tornados Participation assignment

Geographic Information Systems and GIS analysts play a key role in the response to a natural disaster.  After a disaster has occurred, they quickly and simultaneously identify locations for decision makers to establish ground command posts and create a base map of the extent of the disaster in the community for these decision makers.  Communicating the scope of the disaster in the form of large visual aids and individual maps to government and public safety officials both on the ground and facilitating the relief elsewhere, is an important step in determining what supplies may be needed so they can start the process of obtaining them.  GIS analysts can also produce information on continuing primary hazards, such as fires created in the wake of a tornado, so that people in harms way can be warned or resources can be deployed to deal with the hazard.

Once this base map has been established, the process of analyzing the disaster area and immediate surroundings begins.  Analysts will put road, infrastructure, and building data into the GIS from before the event.  Because the GIS can be updated as reports of damage come in, the GIS will evolve as a tool in the recovery process too so communities know what will have to be replaced, and how this waste will have to be handled.  In the response process, schools and other public buildings on the edge of the disaster path with the proper access to basic resources can be identified as probable shelter locations.  The roads and transportation information will inform how additional supplies can be brought to these shelter locations and how people can travel to them.  Analysis of the primary disaster area for residential locations will generate paper maps, which can help recovery personnel locate any persons who couldn’t or didn’t evacuate before the disaster, and also avoid infrastructure hazards such as gas leaks from infrastructure damaged.  The GIS will also be used to prioritize reestablishing necessary public services such as hospitals and sanitation/waste disposal based upon how badly damaged the facilities are, how much they are needed, and their proximity to where people are sheltered.

The GIS is ultimately a necessary organizing tool, with analysts as operators, for response to natural disasters and will evolve into a tool to facilitate rapid recovery of the community. 

I created a very basic map of the Joplin tornado path here: ArcGIS Map Viewer.