Dealing with Budget Cuts? Here's Why You Shouldn’t Reduce Your Investment in Technology

The impact of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) 10 percent reduction to the 2024 fiscal year preparedness grants is affecting emergency management missions across the United States. Most emergency management agencies in the public sector at the state, local, Tribal, and territorial levels are funded by these federal grants, either in part or in full, and the funds are often used for staff salaries, equipment, training, service contracts, and?technology. While the long-term impacts of these cuts have yet to be seen, agencies are starting to make tough budget decisions as federal grant reductions are making their way down to the local level.

Put another way, agency leaders are being asked to determine which capability, or program area, will be cut as a result of the reductions.

I recently attended the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) conference and spoke with several state directors about how these grant cuts are impacting their states’ programs. Several noted that they’ve had to reduce their workforce numbers (despite already being short-staffed relative to the workload), and others said they’ve started cutting their investments in technology and equipment maintenance in order to save their mission-essential functions.

Having been a deputy director for a large urban area agency in the past, I can relate to the decisions my colleagues are faced with. In fact, one of the toughest decisions emergency management directors face is identifying where to cut their programs—because no matter which decision is made, it will undoubtedly affect their mission execution and their communities. And unfortunately, their communities will feel the impact of those cuts just when they need emergency management the most—after a disaster strikes.

The dynamic and constantly evolving threat environment in which we live requires a different approach when conducting a cost-benefit analysis to determine which budget item to cut. For example, while technology and equipment maintenance investments have historically been the first line item to cut (primarily because it’s impossible to execute the mission if you’ve let all your people go—and we don’t have many to start with), society is almost entirely dependent on advanced technology to maintain its current lifestyle. And it’s doubly dependent on technology post-disaster. ?

Examples of our dependency on tech include cellular phones and the 5G network, social media for crowdsourcing and information sharing, online shopping and food delivery, and even electric vehicles. These are now considered standard components of our daily lives, as individuals and communities rely on technology for nearly every transaction that occurs.

The speed with which people expect a government to respond, recover, and provide solutions in the face of a catastrophe is magnified by this dependency. If information and services are unavailable whenever we need them, society views these air gaps as failures of government to keep up with modern times. Or worse, a willful neglect to protect life and property - a viewpoint often originating from mis and disinformation campaigns.

However, meeting society’s expectation of swift emergency response and recovery is simply unachievable without the use of technology. Let’s examine why.

Technology in Emergency Management

Technology advancements allow emergency managers to make expedited, data-driven decisions. They offer capabilities that allow us to quickly collect, analyze, organize, share, and act on information to meet society’s expectations of providing critical services before, during, and after a disaster.

ArcGIS is a suite of apps, maps, and tools that help emergency managers accomplish this mission. Knowing that leaders in emergency management are making some tough decisions on where to cut their programs, this blog post offers 10 ways in which ArcGIS software-powered capabilities help meet society’s expectations post-disaster. ?

Recent Examples in Hurricanes Helene and Milton

Hurricanes Helene and Milton provide recent examples of how ArcGIS technology has played an integral role in emergency response and recovery missions. Here is just a snapshot of the capabilities that leveraged ArcGIS:

• Sharing evacuation information with the public ahead of the storms with applications like Know Your Zone
• Analyzing a community’s profile to understand who will be impacted by the storm (and where they are)
• Conducting flood inundation mapping
• Performing search and rescue operations
• Conducting damage assessments
• Managing imagery data from satellites, the air, and the ground
• Real-time sharing and group collaboration with response and recovery partners via ArcGIS Hub

Perhaps most importantly, the post-disaster application of ArcGIS for imagery analysis, damage assessment, and inundation mapping was used to justify expediting post-disaster funds to affected communities to jump-start recovery. These best practices go as far back as Hurricane Ian.

Applying ArcGIS Post-Disaster

1.????? ArcGIS and Imagery Management

During the response to Hurricanes Helene and Milton, geospatial technology was used to expedite the disaster declaration process, as well as to produce incident impact assessments, conduct search and rescue operations, and run damage assessments.?Images collected from satellites, like those from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) or Civil Air Patrol, and even crowdsourced images helped to identify structures with visible damage. Using artificial intelligence, structures were quickly categorized as minimally, substantially, or completely damaged to expedite the assessments.

According to the United States Geological Survey, over 101,000 images were collected from Helene, and over 8,900 from Milton. Many—if not the majority—of these images were funneled down through state and local emergency management agencies for a variety of uses. That meant that these organizations needed the technology platform to be able to accept, process, and display the images appropriately.

2.????? ArcGIS for Search and Rescue Operations

ArcGIS has been used to establish a search and rescue common operating system nationwide, a collaborative effort spearheaded by the DHS Science and Technology Directorate. The Search and Rescue Common Operating Platform (SARCOP) is an intuitive, secure, mobile, multiagency platform that aggregates massive amounts of information from disaster areas and enables the sharing of that intelligence before, during, and after the disaster. Using advanced geospatial analytics, SARCOP profoundly increases situational awareness, introducing exceptionally impactful efficiencies into the mission of rescuing people and saving lives.

With search and rescue being a multiagency effort, organizations in the state, local, federal, nonprofit, and private sectors leverage SARCOP and its ArcGIS interface to help save lives.

3.????? Damage Assessments and Debris Management Using ArcGIS

In addition to using imagery from satellites, air, and ground, as mentioned above, ArcGIS was used to crowdsource photographs from survivors and responders using PhotoMappers. Through the PhotoMappers Public Portal, disaster photos are mapped and geolocated to create dashboards, galleries, and to use in other applications. The crowdsourced photos help provide an additional source of situational awareness for emergency managers—such as government agencies and emergency response organizations like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Response Coordination Center (NRCC)—as well as residents, who may want to see the damage in their community.

In addition to imagery and PhotoMappers, Esri’s ArcGIS Damage Assessment Solution was used for collecting damage reports, assigning initial damage assessments, monitoring the impact of a disaster, briefing stakeholders, and sharing information.

4.????? Artificial Intelligence (AI) in ArcGIS

ArcGIS is an AI-enabled system, with the power of AI already embedded within many of its tools and applications. Examples of AI use during Hurricanes Helene and Milton were predominantly found in the imagery management and damage assessment processes, as replicated in previous disasters. For example, through machine learning models, ArcGIS tools helped to analyze satellite and drone images to extract building features for data analysis. This analysis helped to determine the extent of damage experienced along the paths of Helene and Milton and served as the basis for the damage assessment process. Leveraging ArcGIS capabilities like GeoAI helps emergency managers work more efficiently and share information more effectively across the full spectrum of response and recovery stakeholders.

5.????? ArcGIS QuickCapture for Team Tracking

ArcGIS QuickCapture is one of the fastest ways to get information from the field back to a command post or command center. Through an easy-to-use, no-code application, QuickCapture empowers users to record field observations on the go from anywhere. Additionally, the app creates a visual representation, using what’s called breadcrumbs, of where field responders have been, so mission assignment leaders are able to assess where field team resources should go next. This dashboard showcases property appraiser progress following Hurricane Helene, as an example of QuickCapture in action.??

6.????? Interagency Data Collaboration Using ArcGIS

From transportation to public works, law enforcement, and fire and emergency medical services, ArcGIS is used in many departments and agencies throughout the country. This makes sharing data and information across interagency platforms more achievable if everyone uses the same system.

ArcGIS Hub is a collaborative platform that looks and feels like a website. It can be used for internal planning collaboration, external partner/stakeholder engagement, public information, project management, information sharing, and more. Access to a site created with ArcGIS Hub can be open to the public or limited to a set of predefined users, and its drag-and-drop functionality makes it easy to set up, maneuver, and manage. ?

During Hurricanes Helene and Milton, the Florida Department of Emergency Management used its platform built with ArcGIS Hub to share GIS data, imagery, and best practices with jurisdictions all over the state. Their use of Hub ensured a consistent approach to data collection, analysis, and delivery.

7.????? ArcGIS and Know Your Zone

Know Your Zone is an authoritative source of information for Florida residents to better understand their risk, specifically as to whether they are living in a low-lying or flood-prone area. The Know Your Zone map, powered by ArcGIS, very clearly indicates which zone a place of residence or business is located, and whether or not they are under an evacuation order.?

Combined with public alert and warning capabilities like Wireless Emergency Alerts, Know Your Zone made it easy for Florida residents to know if they lived in an evacuation zone during Hurricanes Helene and Milton, and when they were being asked to evacuate.

8.????? ArcGIS Analytics?

Through data analytics, ArcGIS tools and apps can be used to understand who in a community could be exposed and potentially impacted by an impending disaster. This can include infrastructure, vulnerable populations, and natural resources. The ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World is a collection of geographic information that includes maps, apps, and data layers that allow emergency management agencies to quickly find infrastructure and data layers for their community. For emergency management organizations with advanced ArcGIS capabilities, users can import their own data layers for an even more detailed, granular analysis of their community profile, as well.

As a recent example, ahead of Hurricane Milton, FEMA’s Natural Hazards Risk Assessment Program leveraged Hazus, based in ArcGIS for this workflow, to run a hurricane wind model. The results of this analysis were showcased in this dashboard.

9.????? Dashboards for Establishing Common Operating Pictures

Emergency management agencies across the country leverage ArcGIS Dashboards for situational awareness and information sharing. This example from the state of Florida shows the current number of power outages throughout the state, which is used before, during, and after weather events. ?

Another dashboard example is the Florida River Forecast Conditions, which showcases river gauges in active flood stages around the state.

10.? Inundation Mapping Using ArcGIS

ArcGIS technology has been used for flood inundation modeling for many years. As this early example from Missouri showcases, ArcGIS can be used with radar and artificial intelligence to map flood inundation on a small or large scale.

For Hurricane Milton, the US Army Corp of Engineers leveraged ArcGIS to analyze rainfall and riverine flooding in Florida. And through Esri partners like ICEYE, images of the damaged areas were analyzed with synthetic aperture radar (SAR), and products like “swipe maps” were created showing images pre- and post-disaster.?

Hurricanes Helene and Milton provide myriad examples of how ArcGIS technology supports local, state, and federal governments with their mission.

For emergency management agencies around the US, the reduction in DHS preparedness grants will undoubtedly affect program capabilities. As leaders begin to conduct a benefit-cost analysis on sunsetting or pausing certain budget line items, strong consideration should be given to capabilities and tools that make work more efficient and productive.

In our modern-day, tech-driven world, emergency management programs must remain committed to advancing their technology capabilities as part of building their preparedness capabilities, so they can be swiftly put into place for response and recovery missions.