41 Keeping Communities Safe High water vehicles were used to rescue people in flood waters. were navigating ankle-deep water in the parking structure. “It was a very quick, sudden, and unexpected event,” said Lucia Hogan, GIS team lead for the city. By nightfall, the water was so high downtown that, during rush hour, people had to leave their cars and evacuate on foot to higher ground. Inland areas—far from storm drains designed for rain and tropical storms—were among the worst hit. On a busy day, the Fort Lauderdale emergency dispatchers might receive 140 calls. On this evening, they had more than 600 calls after 6:00 p.m. People were stuck in their cars or trapped in their homes with water coming in. Additional personnel were called in to assist with the call volume. Inundated, the fire chief reached out to crews from surrounding municipalities to join the rescue efforts. Dispatch directed the work, using a map to minimize overlap. Volunteers with high-water vehicles pulled stranded residents and motorists from areas where the water was too deep for fire engines. Around daybreak, when the downpour finally subsided, the situation became apparent: “We need to get emergency management from the state involved,” Lucas said. “We need to get FEMA out here.” Mapping a Plan of Action Layer by Layer The morning after the storm, bleary-eyed from overnight rescue operations, Chief Lucas met with the GIS team to plan how it would escalate storm response. Bringing in state aid isn’t as simple as calling the governor’s office in Tallahassee and asking for assistance. Florida city governments are organized to manage hurricanes, and the expectation is that they are equipped to handle a rainstorm. “We were starting to get nervous about how we were going to do this,” Lucas recalled. “We knew they were going to ask us to go house to house to document damage.” The storm had flooded six large neighborhoods, impacting thousands of homes. Lucas said, “We were under a lot of pressure from our residents to get the governor’s office something so staff could start contacting Washington and making declarations.” In disaster situations, FEMA offers guidance and resources when damages exceed what state and local authorities can manage. To build a case for FEMA involvement, local damage assessments are essential. Coordinating damage assessments are just one way the GIS team helps orchestrate emergency response and recovery efforts for the city. “We support all the departments and try to streamline and integrate what they need in terms of information,” Hogan said. In this disaster, the GIS team worked around the clock with Hogan and senior GIS analysts Carlos Cruz and Yaser Khouja, splitting shifts. The team pulled in data about the sewer system, the IT infrastructure, public works requests, and information collected in the field to help leadership make quick decisions. “The common denominator is geography,” Hogan said.
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