{"id":691862,"date":"2024-08-21T08:25:48","date_gmt":"2024-08-21T15:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=arcwatch&#038;p=691862"},"modified":"2025-01-02T08:10:32","modified_gmt":"2025-01-02T16:10:32","slug":"tornado-season","status":"publish","type":"arcwatch","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcwatch\/tornado-season","title":{"rendered":"Tornado Season"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":8132,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[237591],"tags":[20422,166672,472171,921,490142],"arcwatch_issues":[489872],"class_list":["post-691862","arcwatch","type-arcwatch","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disaster-response","tag-arcgis-pro","tag-arcgis-solutions","tag-arcgis-survey123","tag-disaster-response","tag-douglas-county","arcwatch_issues-august-2024"],"acf":{"short_description":"A devastating storm struck Douglas County in April 2024. Learn how GIS helped the county respond to and recover from the disaster.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Mike Schonlau, administrator for the GIS department of Douglas County, Nebraska, knew there was potential for severe tornadoes in the days leading up to April 26, 2024. When an emergency operations center was activated that afternoon, Schonlau and another staff member made their way to the center to monitor the situation and prepare to assist first responder agencies. There, everyone hunkered down to await the oncoming storm.\r\n\r\nSchonlau\u2019s department oversees core GIS services for the whole of Douglas County, which includes the city of Omaha. The department primarily provides GIS support to other departments and agencies, including managing\u00a0 multiple databases and over 100 web apps and mobile apps with ArcGIS tools. This infrastructure, as well as county employees\u2019 familiarity with ArcGIS, is invaluable in emergency situations such as tornadoes and floods, when GIS is instrumental both in responding to a disaster and in recovery. During the recovery process, an accurate assessment of damage is crucial in ensuring that local government receives reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for recovery efforts in the aftermath of an emergency event such as a tornado."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":691892,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"As they waited, Schonlau and his staff set up a web app using ArcGIS Online that would help first responders coordinate and communicate with the public. Having been through similar storm-related emergency events, as well as floods, they also prepared to deploy field data collection tools such as ArcGIS Survey123 and ArcGIS Field Maps.\r\n\r\n\u201cThere was a damage assessment reporting form for the field we had used successfully during a flood event in 2019,\u201d said Schonlau. \u201cWe got to work in the afternoon of that Friday making sure that was working and making sure the content of the survey was up-to-date.\u201d\r\n\r\nSchonlau\u2019s team also started building a web app using ArcGIS Experience Builder that would include dashboards to display damage reports called in by Douglas County residents. It was vital that the team have all this in place when the storm finally hit, so staff would be able to provide real-time data and support for first responders working in the field.\r\n\r\n<strong>From Preparation to Action<\/strong>\r\n\r\nFinally, on the evening of April 26, nine tornadoes touched down near Omaha, Nebraska. They tore across the landscape for almost five hours and destroyed nearly 200 homes across eastern Nebraska and western Iowa, often leaving behind only basements. Almost 1,000 homes in total sustained some level of damage.\r\n\r\nThe tools Schonlau and his team had prepared went into effect as first responders sprang into action, assisting injured residents and collecting information on the tornadoes\u2019 impact."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":691922,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"\u201cWe knew from first responder reports that there had been considerable damage,\u201d Schonlau said. \u201cBut it was late at night. We couldn't do a lot that evening after the storms.\u201d\r\n\r\nFirst thing the following morning, however, Schonlau\u2019s team went out to capture drone imagery of impacted areas. Thanks to first responder field reports, they knew exactly where to fly and what images they needed to capture to obtain a full picture of the aftermath.\r\n\r\nOn top of National Weather Service reports, GIS department staff used this imagery to ascertain the boundaries of the damaged areas, a crucial step in the recovery process."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":691932,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"\u201cWe were able to draw a tornado damage area in ArcGIS Pro, and that area served as our focus point,\u201d said Schonlau. \u201cWe then included that area in the web [app] that we had built.\u201d\r\n\r\nAs residents began to call into the county\u2019s 2-1-1 emergency line to report damage over the course of the day, operators input this data into the ArcGIS Survey123 form that Schonlau and his team had set up before the tornadoes struck. This was linked to the web app so that damage assessments would automatically populate within the affected area, allowing the GIS department and first responders to manage access to damaged areas and property. The app also included information\u2014such as the types of structures damaged and the severity of the damage\u2014and photos from the field, if available.\r\n\r\n\u201cIn addition to [residents] and 2-1-1 call takers, we started to get emergency volunteers and inspectors from the city and county who were actually doing more formal damage assessments,\u201d said Schonlau. \u201cThey were doing this through mobile apps we'd built, and all of that information started to show up in our web [app].\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":691902,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<strong>Assessment and Recovery<\/strong>\r\n\r\nIn the following days and weeks, a picture of the damage the tornadoes had done became clearer.\r\n\r\n\u201cAt first it's really just the triage,\u201d said Schonlau. \u201cBut then you have a little time to think and get more organized with what you're doing, and that's what happened here. We provided more guidance and organization to how the data was being collected and reported.\u201d\r\n\r\nOne of the most valuable features communicating the extent and nature of the damage was a swipe tool Schonlau and his team built into the web app. The tool showed what the tornado-affected areas had looked like just before the storm compared to immediately afterward. Luckily, aerial imagery of the whole county had been collected only a few weeks before the tornado, making the comparison especially valuable when the City of Omaha began to issue permits for rebuilding.\r\n\r\nOn April 30, just a few days after the tornadoes struck, Schonlau and his team presented the web app to the Omaha City Council and Douglas County officials, supplying an overall picture of the damage that had occurred. The web app was also critical in communicating with FEMA, which provided recovery assistance in the wake of the storm."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":691942,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"When it comes to responding to storms or other natural events that cause this kind of damage, Schonlau emphasized, the name of the game is preparation. Using ArcGIS Solutions for damage assessment, for instance, was invaluable in speeding the county\u2019s deployment of GIS resources. But the county has also been through several storm- and flood-related events in recent years that prepared the team to know what to expect. And having the right tools in place ensures that Douglas County will be ready when the next storm hits.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe had built tools to collect data in all of these instances, and we've tried to take notes on what worked, what didn't work, what could be more efficient,\u201d said Schonlau. \u201cHow do we do things more quickly? How do we report things more accurately? We\u2019re always examining that.\u201d"}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Tornado Season<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A devastating storm struck Douglas County in April 2024. 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