Manager's Corner Your Dataset Transportation Cadastral Orthoimagery Political units Elevation Fire Engine? Description High-quality streets for time-based geocoding and incident geocoding Assessor parcels with complete attribution Washington Public Land Survey System (PLSS) High-resolution orthoimagery City, district boundaries, and urban growth areas 10-meter digital elevation model 6-foot LiDAR Source Kent Public Works, King County, TIGER 2009 King County Assessor Washington Department of Natural Resources Commercial providers State, county, and municipal data providers U.S. Geological Survey Puget Sound LiDAR Consortium U.S. Geological Survey and FEMA Hydrography Stream centerlines, water body polygons, flood maps Table 1: FGDC framework datasets Essential Facilities Facilities—Essential and Critical Facilities are locations and resources. Although they are usually fixed, they can sometimes be mobile. They contribute to or are affected by emergency response and public safety activities. Facilities can be divided into two subgroups: essential facilities and critical facilities. Essential facilities include services (e.g., apparatus, equipment, and personnel) to provide public protection and effect an emergency response. Critical facilities are major recipients of emergency assistance and have special needs during an incident. However, facilities are not always only essential or critical. A particular facility, such as a school, might fall under critical rules during one emergency, such as an evacuation or a safety lockdown, but during an evacuation sheltering scenario might perform an essential function. Table 2 contains a short and intentionally incomplete list of essential and critical facilities. Use local expert knowledge and intuition to add more valuable datasets to these lists. Each of these facilities requires mapping and on-site assessment to determine the role, effectiveness, and interplay of these resources during an emergency. Facilities are often mapped as location points or parcel/building footprint polygons. Attribution varies by jurisdiction and facility. Fire stations include apparatus and staffing; schools list student and staff occupancies and available evacuation resources. As a critical facility, a hospital might list typical patient and staff occupancies, areas with special evacuation needs, and hazardous or controlled substances. As an essential facility, resources for trauma service, patient handling, and medical quarantine might be listed. Kent Fire maps essential and critical facilities at the parcel and building footprint level. For location points, aerial imagery allows points to be placed at front doors or street entrances for facilities such as fire stations. Attribution varies by facility type. Essential facility data includes available resources, such as equipment and personnel, contact information, and staffing schedules. Critical facilities information includes populations at risk, temporal occupancy data, contact information, and emergency response plan links. Infrastructure Infrastructure can become a very broad category. In the fire service, water for fire suppression quickly comes to mind, but there are many more infrastructure players to consider. Table 3 lists several infrastrucwww.esri.com Fire stations EMS facilities Emergency operation centers Hospitals, medical centers Medical resources Airports Emergency landing zones Evacuation centers Critical Facilities Public buildings Hospitals and medical centers Public transportation centers and systems Convalescent homes and care facilities High-occupancy residential complexes High-hazard industrial, commercial sites Other high-risk sites that have a history of frequent response Historic and culturally significant structures and sites Table 2: Some examples of essential and critical facilities ture types and the associated datasets that are important for Kent Fire. The Kent Fire Department maintains a close relationship with the Kent City Public Works Department, the primary water provider within the city. Data is updated and shared regularly, and neighboring water companies provide hydrant location and testing information. Prefire plans include information about buildings with sprinkler systems. Emergency communications are managed by Valley Com, a regional center located in Kent's southeast suburbs. The communications links between agencies are tested regularly and are always improving. The regional center maintains call lists and radio frequency information for commercial service providers and utility employees who often participate during emergency Continued on page 42 ArcUser Fall 2010 41