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GIS Partnership Summary

Year 2000 Emergency Preparedness Task Force

Partnership Purpose and Goal

In early 1999, New York State established a Year 2000 Task Force on Emergency Preparedness to ensure its readiness to be able to react to any potential crisis caused by Year 2000 (Y2K) related issues. Building on previous emergency management experiences, GIS was seen as essential to locating facilities affected by power outages, identifying and tracking deployed resources, and communicating the magnitude and interrelationship of problems. In order to provide this GIS support, a 20 person GIS Unit was established composed of staff from 10 State agencies.

Participants and Resource Contributions

Time Frame

Date Partnership Began: April 1999
Completion Date: January 2000

Deliverables

As a result of the success of the GIS Unit for the Y2K Emergency Preparedness Task Force, a number of deliverables were derived:

  1. Over 30 GIS datasets for created or improved datasets relating to emergency preparedness.
  2. Several new applications were developed which provided geo-referenced data from live data feeds.
    • The Department of Public Service - power outage data from New York's major power companies.
    • The Department of Transportation - road condition data from DOT facilities across the State.
    • The Division of State Police - computerized reports from county Emergency Operation Centers across the State.
    • The Department of Tax & Finance - automated call-out application to provide status information from 2,500 high-risk occupancy facilities.
    • The State Emergency Management Office - mission requests from incoming phone calls.
  3. GIS awareness training to over 500 state staff.
  4. Establishment of GIS video conferencing capabilities at the State Emergency Operations Center.
  5. Creation of 180 GIS images in response to requests during the Y2K transition weekend.

Brief Summary of Partnership

A multi-agency GIS Unit was established for the Year 2000 Task Force on Emergency Preparedness. This unit was composed of staff from the State Emergency Management Office, the Department of Transportation, the Department of State, the Division of State Police, the Department of Health, the Office of Real Property Services, the State Education Department, the Thruway Authority, Department of Public Service, and the Department of Environmental Conservation.

Initially, an analysis of the data needed to properly respond to Y2K related problems was performed and, as a result, State agencies were asked to either create or improve over 30 databases. Information was gathered on such areas as high risk occupancy facilities, State owned emergency generators, power utility companies, critical vendors, critical care facilities, hazardous waste facilities, State facilities, potential shelter sites (public schools, colleges, & universities), etc. In addition, digital orthophotos from the Digital Orthophoto Quarter Quad (DOQQ) Program were reprocessed to address file size and format issues, and to address variation and quality of images. For the first time, live data feeds were also developed with power utility companies, high-risk occupancy facilities (medical facilities, state facilities, etc.), road condition data and County Emergency Operation Centers. Finally, taking advantage of a new electronic messaging and mission tracking system developed by the State Emergency Management Office, all calls coming in to the State Emergency Operations Center were geo-referenced automatically by operators through a series of drop down menus.

The GIS Unit was organized to handle each of the areas of live data feeds as well as special requests sent in from the various functional units in the Task Force. In addition, a GIS Kiosk was set on the main Operations floor at the State Operations Center to respond to immediate questions by agency representatives. Individuals were also responsible for visiting each of the twenty plus functional groups to insure that they had adequate data or analysis to perform their duties.

Because most members of the Year 2000 Task Force on Emergency Preparedness had little idea of the capabilities of GIS, awareness sessions were incorporated into each of the training sessions given to participants. In addition, supplemental awareness training was added to each of the live exercises held at the State Emergency Management Office in preparation for the Y2K transition weekend. Finally, in order to ensure that the Task Force utilized GIS to its full advantage, GIS was made central to the workflow with all messages routed through the GIS Unit. This allowed the Unit to not only respond to special requests, but also suggest potential aids that could be provided to assist functional groups with their assignments.

GIS was decidedly a "critical component" of the Y2K Task Force. In addition, the 500 plus staff who participated on the Task Force obtained an increased recognition of the importance of GIS as an analytical tool.

The key policy implications resulting from the use of GIS for the Y2K Task Force include the following:

Additional Information Available On-line
None

Contact Information

R. Bruce Oswald
Project Director
NYS Office for Technology
State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224

Phone: (518) 486-3580
Fax: (518) 473-3153
E-mail: bruce.oswald@oft.state.ny.us

Information last updated: February 6, 2000