17 Communicating Progress with an Interested Public The Key Bridge collapse headlined global news for weeks, with sustained public interest until the debris was gone and the main channel reopened. Press briefings relied on GIS maps and 3D visualizations to convey the changing conditions. “By the time it was said and done, we had done thousands of media interviews,” said Cynthia Mitchell, public affairs specialist for the US Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District. “We relied heavily on maps and visuals to help people understand the complexity. Officials wanted details. Having images and maps helped us build trust very quickly, knowing that the information we had accurately reflected the work.” Everyone involved recognized the benefits of the cross-agency collaboration achieved with GIS. “People saw what we did, they experienced it,” Hanna said. “They could touch it, poke it, prod it, and were able to see how we made connections.” “We leveraged a lot of things that came out of the so-called COVID years,” Scott said. “The ability to virtually plug in from anywhere worked really well.” “We created many apps that I feel made an impact,” Snyder said. “One called nowCOAST lets you visualize data we’ve never visualized this way before. It was a great achievement.” This level of collaboration has attracted attention from other agencies, signaling a need to better coordinate in the wake of other events such as natural disasters. FEMA, for instance, could take a similar approach to overseeing storm cleanup after hurricanes. Those involved in the Key Bridge response stay in regular contact, with data integration that supports day-to-day operations. “Just the other day, we got a call from the National Data Buoy Center that there was a buoy adrift in the Atlantic Ocean,” Snyder said. “I talked to Ian to connect the person at Coast Guard who will go and retrieve it. We just gave him access to the data, because the trust between our portals is already established.” “This is the way we should be doing business,” Hanna said. “Instead of exchanging things like memory sticks or email attachments, we can connect. It makes it so much faster and more efficient. Everybody could use the data for their mission and be aware of what was happening.” NOAA Navigation Services collected surveys of the channel to aid response and recovery efforts. Guiding Good Governance
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