In 2023, the Eau Claire County emergency management team members conducted a long-term power outage exercise. During that exercise, they used a mapping application to visualize the situation and mark the locations of shelters and other key critical infrastructure. During this exercise, stakeholders wanted information:
- The number of people in each shelter
- Each shelter’s current capacity
- The hours of operation for each of the facilities
The team members realized they also wanted this data to be interactive and shareable with more than just department staff.
“When I saw the demo of the Emergency Management Operations solution, powered by ArcGIS Solutions, I saw everything that I wanted to be able to share,” said Desio. “We ended up adopting the solution; have tested it during multiple exercises and incidents; and now use it as a core tool for our Emergency Operations Center.”
This solution allows the Eau Claire County Emergency Management Department to list active incidents, weather watches and warnings, evacuation notices, critical response and infrastructure sites, open shelters, and even data on animal shelter locations. The solution also displays information that enables department staff to prevent capacity limits being exceeded at certain shelters. This helps the team members know whether to notify mass care units that more shelters are needed. Also, a form included in the solution interface allows users to update the status of community lifeline conditions, presenting them on an incident status dashboard.
“One of my favorite stories is [that] before we used GIS, I had a board that listed out all the community lifelines,” continued Desio. “If the lifeline was impacted in any way, you had to go up and [use] Velcro [to attach] your lifeline circle to the wall, and there was no way to understand [the] what and why a lifeline was being affected.”