47 “What have I got, where is it going, and what am I going to need?” In an emergency, the answers to these questions are vital. And they are a constant concern for Brian Payne, Scott County Emergency Management Agency director in Iowa. Where Scott County sits in America’s Midwest means that its approximately 175,000 residents experience their share of extreme weather. There have been tornadoes, floods, and derechos, even droughts and the occasional earthquake, and there’s a nearby nuclear power station. These risks require the county’s emergency management agency to be prepared for anything. This need to be prepared for anything—when and where it might happen— has brought Payne and his team much closer with the county’s GIS analysts over the years. As deadly tornadoes carved a path through Iowa in late May 2024, the teams were following reports in near real time. If the twisters had neared Scott County, the teams would have been ready to mobilize, providing life-saving information to first responders. Instead, they got lucky. The storm system changed directions. The relationship between emergency managers and the county’s GIS analysts deepened in November 2023, in preparation for a biennial simulation of a radiological event. It’s a massive one-day exercise involving four counties across two FEMA regions, two states, the nuclear power plant, and several hundred people. During the disaster simulation, FEMA representatives evaluate how agencies react. Members of the emergency management agency and the GIS team collaborated to create the county’s Situational Awareness Experience app. Built using ArcGIS developer tools, the application has grown beyond nuclear radiation simulations to enable better awareness of any high-risk event—be it a tornado or a closely watched election. Ready for Anything, Iowa’s Scott County Trusts GIS in Emergencies Keeping Communities Safe
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