Emergency Preparedness for GIS

Title: Emergency Preparedness for GIS
Date: October 3rd, 2016
Length: Half Day
Time: 1:00pm – 5:00pm
Location: Athens Classic Center

Workshop Description: As GIS goes from being a silo technology in an organization to an integrated enterprise solution, there is a pressing need for cross training on the non-technical disciplines GIS staff is being asked to support. Specifically, public safety (emergency management, police and fire services) and the ridged work flows which accompany their daily duties, often prove foreign to those unfamiliar with these specific disciplines. In order to accommodate their needs in a time-sensitive situation, out experience is that by taking the ‘GIS’ out of the analyst-emergency responder relationship is the best approach. The key is to arm the GIS professional with enough knowledge so they can effectively discern the needs of the incident commander and quickly produce the spatial document(s) which best support decision making in an emergency.

This workshop is divided into a two part structure:

First, an overview of the incident command structure and the national incident management system. We will briefly discuss common situations specific to each discipline and show case studies/examples of how GIS is used to support each. We will also discuss relevant data sets to public safety and suggestions for the integration of GIS into their organizations disaster preparedness planning.

The second part of the workshop will include an interactive emergency technology table exercise with participants from the audience and provide take away knowledge that can be implemented in their own organizations.