New York State Office of Cyber Security
Geographic Information Systems Clearinghouse
GIS Partnership Summary
Rockland County's Emergency Response Planning
Partnership Purpose and Goal
Rockland County and State officials have developed detailed emergency response plans for the area within 10 miles of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plants, and have previously relied solely on a publication entitled “Planning for Emergencies” to disseminate the emergency plans to the public. The Partnership’s goal was to improve the quality of outreach to Rockland County residents by providing a regularly updated website, with an easily accessible way for users to obtain emergency plans specific to their street address. Thus, the Indian Point Interactive GIS Mapping System was created, a vast improvement for residents who previously relied on having to figure out their emergency information from a small scale printed map enclosed in “Planning for Emergencies”. Partnerships were necessary to bring the technical GIS expertise of the Rockland County Planning Department (the County’s lead agency in GIS development) and consultants, Intelligent Decisions Systems Inc., together with the funding and emergency planning expertise of the Rockland County Office of Fire and Emergency Services.Participants and Resource Contributions
- ROCKLAND COUNTY DEPARTMENT
OF PLANNING –
provided and developed data and acted as liaison between IDSi (the consultants)
and the Rockland County Office of Fire and Emergency Services. Also beta tested
the site as it was developed. Member of the NYS GIS Data Sharing Cooperative.
- ROCKLAND COUNTY OFFICE
OF FIRE AND EMERGENCY SERVICES – provided source for emergency data
and funding for project.
- INTELLIGENT DECISIONS SYSTEMS, Inc. (IDSi) – provided technical support in development and hosting the site using a customized ArcIMS application using ArcIMS ActiveX Connector, Active Server Pages (ASP) and Javascript.
Time Frame
Date Partnership
Began: July, 2002
Completion Date: August,
2002
Deliverables
Expected deliverable was an interactive online GIS system available to the public for emergency planning purposes. Users were to have an interactive, user-friendly site for the average County resident to easily operate so they could access emergency plans for their area. We expected users to be able to input their location by a street address, intersection, PIN number or Section/Block/Lot. Users were to be able to see a small scale County map, with their location identified in relation to the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plants. A map layer of the 10 mile zone around the power plants was to be visible so residents could quickly identify if they are within 1 of thirteen Emergency Response Planning Areas(ERPAs). If so, a report was to be generated for residents showing their ERPA number and detailing corresponding evacuation routes, directions to reception centers, and information on emergency broadcast stations. In addition, to complement the report, various map screens were to be available.
Users should then be able to zoom to a larger scale map to see the outline of their parcel and more detailed surrounding information, such as local streets and landmarks. Maps and reports were to be formatted for easy printing. Additional features were to include the capability for users to turn on or off any of the data layers, and also have the capability to identify map features interactively.
The website was to be user-friendly to first-time users and novices. A “Start Here” flashing button was added to guide users to where they should start their address search. A “First Time Users” link was established to familiarize users with the site, linking them to a graphic document explaining the elements of the website. An online Users Guide was developed explaining how to use the website (ie: how to do searches, explanations of all buttons, etc).
An important feature of the project was for the design of website to offer flexibility and expansion capabilities in meeting needs of other County agencies. Recently, the County enacted the 48 Hour Neighbor Notification law, requiring landscapers to notify neighbors when pesticides were being applied. The website was easily expanded so that users could obtain a login account to have the capability to create buffers around the parcel being treated and create mailing labels to facilitate notification by mail, thus saving time in the field.
The final product met or exceeded expectations of all deliverables and greatly satisfied County agencies involved in the partnership. It will be used as a model for other county programs when there is a necessity to interactively disseminate to the public data with a geographic component.
Brief Summary of Partnership
The partnership worked extremely well. The Planning Department – GIS Unit has worked with the Office of Fire and Emergency Services in the past to develop data and custom GIS applications. Therefore the Planning Department was familiar with their needs and already had a very good inter-office relationship with them. Bringing in Intelligent Decisions Systems, Inc. (IDSi) as the consultant to provide development and hosting of the GIS website proved to be highly effective and economical.Once the Planning Department provided IDSi with the GIS data needed for the site, the implementation was the expected one month! IDSi worked within the County’s budget and always accommodated the ever-changing requests as the site was being developed. IDSi made it very easy for the beta-testers (Planning Department and Office of Fire & Emergency Services) to communicate desired changes to the website. IDSi created an on-line form to log requests. An additional web page was created by IDSi so the beta-testers could see the status of their requests. Comments were added to the status form by IDSi to inform the County of any special needs on their part to accommodate the beta-tester’s requests. IDSi worked hard to meet the County’s deadlines and were always easy to reach whether by phone or email.
The Planning Department anticipates a very good working relationship with IDSi as we continue to update the GIS data and expand the website’s functionality.
Further cooperation was needed by additional County agencies to market the site. The County’s MIS Department helped to establish a prominent link to the Indian Point website on the official County website (www.co.rockland.ny.us). The website has also been promoted through a County-issued press release, resulting in newspaper and online articles. IDSi has written an article to appear in GIS industry periodicals. The site is also being registered with ESRI’s IMS User Registry.
Additional Information Available
On-line
http://www.idsigis.com/rockland/start.asp?+fw=400
Contact Information
Douglas J. Scheutz
GIS Director
Department of Planning - GIS Unit
Building T, 50 Sanatorium Road
Pomona, NY 10970
Phone: (845) 364-3421
Fax: (845) 364-3435
E-Mail: scheutzd@co.rockland.ny.us
Daniel Mohan
President
Intelligent Decisions Systems, Inc.
2125 Center Avenue
Suite 404
Fort Lee, NJ 07024
Phone: (201) 302-9494, Ext. 104
Fax: (201) 302-9495
E-Mail: info@idsigis.com
Christopher Jensen
Hazardous Materials Coordinator
Rockland County Office of Fire and Emergency Services
35 Firemen's Memorial Drive
Pomona, NY 10970
Phone: (845) 364-8902
Fax: (845) 364-8961
E-Mail: jensenc@co.rockland.ny.us