Hurricane Ike GIS Resources

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Contents

Curfew Zones

General Damage

  • Hurricane Ike Damage Google Maps Open Collaboration (Google Maps) (KML) (GeoRSS) - Shows floods, mudslides, agricultural, and other damage.


Introduction

This wikipedia article serves as a point of collection of GIS (Geographic Information System) resources (map overlays) related to the developing situation related to Hurricane Ike. Post KMZ, KML, Shapefile, GeoRSS and other machine readable resources here as well as lists and other data sources that can be converted to GIS resources here. Links to maps that are not in GIS usable formats can also be posted. Later, this will serve as historical documentation.

KML and KMZ files can be opened in googleearth, NASA Worldwind, GRASS, ArgGIS and other GIS applications; if the software is installed on your computer, just clicking on the link may be sufficient. They may also be displayed on Google Maps by pasting the URL into the search box; however, Google maps will not display all data points for large data sets and will not display some types of overlays. The URL for the KML file can also be appended to the this partial URL. ARG GIS Shapefiles can be opened in many applications. Google Code also has an application which will convert Shapefiles to KML files.

Readers are encouraged to search for and post links to GIS files or to create KML/KMZ files from existing data and post the links here. Before doing a significant amount of work converting or creating a file, post a temporary note in the appropriate section here to avoid duplication of effort.

KML is an XML file format that can easily be created by hand (for small amounts of data) or with a simple program. Google has documentation on KML file format. A KMZ file is a zipped archive containing one or more KML files and related image files. Files linked to on this page can be used as examples. Placemarks can also be placed within google earth and saved as a KML file; googleearth also lets you look up by address. Google Maps can be used to create placemarks, lines, and shapes (polygons) online and this can be done collaboratively.

Displaying disaster related map information in GIS or GIS viewer applications is much more powerful than single maps that have lost their abstraction presented as image files, PDF, etc. The user can display multiple layers of information together and/or switch between overlays. The user can search by address or latitude/longitude to find a particular location on a map. GIS Data can be converted using GPSBabel and downloaded directly into GPS data. Note: this page has been moved here from Wikipedia. There is also a Interactive Maps Team Page here.

Empty sections indicate needed data that is not presently available (or hasn't been found yet). This outline also can serve as a template for future disasters.

Metafile

Hurricane IKE KML metafile incorporates other KML/KMZ files by reference as separate layers. Post new KML/KMZ file links here in this wikipedia article. Note that despite attempts to prevent it from doing so, Google Earth turns on layers corresponding to various network links causing the data to be pulled down and a very busy looking map. Turn off unwanted layers in the Places Sidebar.

Satellite/Aerial Imagery

NOAA Aerial Imagery

  • Placemarks linking to Aerial Photos taken after storm (KML file) (googlemaps). Note that googlemaps does not display all the points.
  • Mosaic images as an overlay (KML file)

USGS Aerial Imagery

USGS has oblique aerial photos taken after the storm. (KMZ file)

Lousiana IKE photos

(KMZ file)

Infrastructure

Levies, Seawalls, Floodwalls, Dikes

Oil Infrastructure

Internet

Impassable Roads

Railroads

Railroad Maps

Railroad Status

Intermodal Shipments

At least portions of the shipping industry have tracking for intermodal containers. This is geospacial information and should be made available as KML files for each shipment.

Electric Grid

Power Line Maps

Power Lines/Poles Down

Transmission Lines

Outage Maps

  • Google Maps Outage Map - Open collaboration - (Google Maps) (KML) (GeoRSS) - This is not a proper outage map with detailed information from the power company databases but it does have coverage areas of the power companies in affected areas and links to the websites where you can view their non-standards compliant maps and other info. Derived in part from the

Outage management system wikipedia article.

Power Plants

Nuclear
Coal
Natural Gas
Wind Turbines
Solar Arrays
Geothermal

Web Cameras

  • Geographically Organized Webcams (generic) (KMZ)

Hiking Trails

Telephone

Central Office Locations

Telephone Line Maps

Telephone Status

Public Utilities Commission of Texas has links to power company pages with outage information. Note that these tend to have maps in non-GIS compatible formats.

Cell Phone

Tower Locations, coverage area, and status

Personnel Tracking

Any of the cell phone location tracking apps support KML or GeoRSS.

Ham Radio

See Ham Radio Resources page on hurricanewiki for non-GIS info.

Repeaters

  • US Ham repeater locations (KML) - Mobile and handheld stations (and base stations) use repeaters, generally located at a high elevation, to get longer range than point to point communications.
  • Echolink network (KMZ) map and status. Echolink connects repeaters via the internet allowing Hams to communicate between repeater coverage areas.
  • IRLP (KML) is similar to Echolink but doesn't use proprietary software.

Emergency Stations

APRS

Amateur Packet Reporting System (APRS) is a protocol by which mobile Ham Radio stations can transmit their locations using Packet Radio. In some areas, this information is collected by base stations and forwarded to a combined feed on the internet.

Propagation Charts

Time varying HF propagation charts, from HF simulation programs such as VOACAP and minimuf, could be made available as KML/KMZ links from a server. Radio Mobile can apparently export propagation charts in KML but it is a windows GUI program. Map layers with propagation data for individual local stations (such as repeaters) could be of use as well (similar to the TV Fool charts), though contour plots could be more efficient than the raster data.

Callsign Location Database

  • Non-GIS: QRZ has a web searchable database of all Hams in the US. Includes lattitude/longitude. US Ham data is also available from the FCC without the additional data that QRZ lets Ham's add.

Marine

Maritime Charts

Ship Tracking

  • Non-GIS: Automatic Identification System is a position reporting system for ships at sea. sailwx has an interactive web map with ship data. Passenger ships and cargo ships with a gross tonnage over 300 tons are required to have AIS transponders. vesseltrax has an interactive map of ships around the Houston/Galveston area.

Tides and Currents

Aviation

No Fly Zones

Airport Status

  • Non-GIS: Flightstats has an airport delays RSS Feed - not geocoded; for example, on 2008-09-22 it reports that GLS (Scholes Field, Galveston, TX) is closed at night due to lack of runway lights.

Flight Tracking

  • NCAR Earth Observing Laboratory (KML)
  • Non-GIS: google lets you track any specific flight by typing the flight number into the google search engine search box (example: "AA 34") via flightstats.com.

Other

  • International Flights Animation (KMZ) (incomplete)
  • US Aeronautical Charts (KMZ)

Satellites

Track Satellites (polar orbit) over region. This can be an indication when data from those satellites may be available and when certain satellites can be used for communication (such as HamSats). Data on geostationary satellites can be used to set up dish antennas for emergency communications such as Satellite Internet links.

Television

Local Television Station Transmitter Locations

  • TV Fool TV transmitter Locations - This is a KMZ file that is, oddly, contained within a .ZIP file although KMZ files are already zip compressed. This is likely to interfere with linking from google earth.

Station Status

Internet Live Feeds

Coverage Maps

  • TV Fool Coverage Maps - These are very large KMZ files with raster image overlays that must be downloaded by bittorrent.

Broadcast Radio Stations

Local Broadcast Radio Stations

Station Status

Internet Live Feeds

Web Cameras

Package Shipments

Common carriers like UPS and FedEx have tracking systems that keep track of what packages are on what vehicles. And they should, by now, have real time information on the position of their vehicles (trucks and planes). So, they should be able to give you a KML link for each package that shows EXACTLY where your package is right now, how it got there and what route it should be taking to the destination. Handy anytime, but particularly useful when a shipment may be affected by a disaster, especially for packages containing critical emergency supplies.

Shelters, PODs, Evacuation Centers, etc

Shelters

inside affected area

outside affected area

PODs (Points of Distribution)

Evacuation Centers

Places you go to be evacuated.

Medical Centers

  • See Texas Governor's situation reports (below) for hospital closure information in non-GIS format
  • Direct relief international Hurricane 2008 prepositioning map (KMZ) - Seems to include clinics DRI sent prepositioned supply packs to (green markers) as well as gulf coast community health centers (red markers) and gulf coast free clinics (blue markers).

Open Merchants

Grocery Stores

Hardware Stores

Gas Stations

Pharmacies

FEMA Participating Hotels

list of FEMA participating Evacuation Hotels. Needs to be geocoded.

Storm Tracks

  • IFRC Partial storm track (KMZ) from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Shows path over cuba but ends in the gulf.
  • IFRC Hurricane Gustav partial storm track (KMZ) - ends near dallas
  • IFRC Hurricane Hanna partial storm track (KMZ)
  • See weather below, though I still can't find a good hurricane track
  • Non-GIS: Final storm track

Flooding

Actual Flooding

  • Google Maps Open Collaboration (Google Maps) (KML) (GeoRSS) - Click on Google Maps to contributed. Damage along Texas Coastline was traced using Google Earth and NOAA photos; outlines are approximate. Other areas still need to be done.

FEMA Flood Zone Maps (generic)

Global Warming Sea Level Rise Flood Maps (generic)

Hard Hit Areas

General Photography (geocoded)

Weather

Buoys

Lightning Strikes

Hurricane Models

Daily MODIS Images

Earthquake Information

Not likely an issue for Hurricane Ike but could be important for other disasters. *(KMZ)

Population Density

  • Night Lights (KMZ)These can be a reference to identify heavily populated areas.
  • World Population Density (KMZ)

Animal Information

Animal Shelters

  • Non-GIS Pet Shelters - Human shelters taking pets, shelters taking pets while their owners are in a shelter, etc.
  • Hurricane Katrina Animal Shelters (KMZ) - outdated, but has an icon which could be used. Used data from [2] and [3].

Animal Rescue

Non-Domestic Animals

There were reports of an Elephant, Tiger, and Alligators on the loose.

Other

  • WWF Conservation Areas (KMZ)
  • Bird Migratory Patterns (KMZ)

Disaster Declarations

Areas reporting disasters. See Texas Governor's Situation Report below for TX.

Evacuation Zones

Mandatory Evacuation Zones

Voluntary Evacuation Zones

Crime

Looting

Violent Crime

Other

  • Put neighborhood crime stats here


Census Overlays

Demographics

Transportation

  • Census Transportation Planning Package - contains information on where people live, where people work, and where they commute. Available online or on a large number (153?) of CD ROMS. Useful for impact assessments.

Other Information

Emergency Services

Locations, Status, and Service areas

Real time tracking

May be restricted to emergency personel.

Scanners

  • Non-GIS: ScanAmerica has an Audio Feed from a scanner in the Galveston area (Police, Fire, Rescue, Coast Guard, air traffic, amatuer,, etc.).

Forest Fires

For other disasters.

Sandbox

A test collaborative map has been created on Google Maps for experimenting. (Google Maps)(KML) (GeoRSS) - Click the Google Maps link to play in the sandbox.

Tips

Creating A Google Maps Open Collaboration map overlay

  • Go to maps.google.com
  • Click on "My Maps"
  • Turn off any visible map layers, lest they be added to your new map.
  • Click on "Create New Map" in the sidebar
  • Enter Name and Description. Put instructions to precede each name with an appropriate string to avoid confusion when combining multiple layers and to use an appropriate icon. Select the check box that makes the map public.
  • Click on "Collaborate" link in the sidebar, a popup will be displayed. Check the boxes marked "Collaborators may invite others" "Allow anyone to edit this map". Click "OK".
  • If you have a KML file with initial data to import, click on the "Import" link in the sidebar and upload or provide a URL to the file. Note that you can import additional data later, thoughh the import link isn't always visible depending on the mode.
  • Copy the "Link", "Open in Google Earth", and "RSS" links to this page.
  • Click DONE.

Adding Placemarks to Open Collaboration map overlay

  • Follow the Google Maps link here
  • This is the tricky part: If you need to search by address, do so now. You will lose your map but you should be able to get back to it by clicking on My Maps (even if it isn't your map, it should show up under "Created by others" in the sidebar. Click on the right map name.
  • Make sure the map name is selected in the sidebar so you are editing the right map. Hide any other map layers.
  • Click EDIT in the sidebar
  • Click the placemark icon (baloon) near the top of the map area. Note you can also draw lines and polygons by selecting those icons.
  • Position and edit your placemark. Click on the icon in the edit window to change the appearance of the icon.
  • Click DONE in the sidebar.

The Future

Information is one of the most scarce commodities in a disaster. And since most of that information is geographical in nature, Geographic Information Systems are a vital way of organizing it. You don't need a lot of skill to contribute something, though if you have skills they can be put to good use. A lot of it is just searching for, or watching for, information and transcribing it. Information can save lives, it can get people back on their feet sooner, and it can reduce the length of the stressful period when people are in limbo not knowing whether they even have a home to go back to.

In the long run, this is about working, especially in your area, to make sure that the data, or the infrastructure to collect and distribute it in appropriate formats, is available before a disaster strikes. FEMA, local emergency agencies, power companies, etc. have really dropped the ball. Don't wait until a disaster strikes because then it takes too long. Also, now is the time to develop the skills to be better able to help in the next disaster.

Even the local TV stations that were working hard to cover the disaster and providing live feeds dropped the ball. Were they set up to provide closed captioning (with the help of the National Captioning Institute or others)? Did they report latitude/longitude? Did they record GPS data with their video and transmit that on one of the captioning channels? Did they transmit time information in captioning and as an overlay so you can associated time with particular events when playing back the streams? Did they put time and location information as headers in image stills they put on their websites? This kind of stuff needs advance preparation.

Does your cell phone company have a special number set up that you can text messages to to report damage and automatically pull the GPS data from your phone when you do with that information fed to websites in and out of the area as well as the appropriate organizations to respond to that data?

File Formats

  • KML - Keyhole Markup Language, XML format originated with the predecessor to Google Earth
  • KMZ - Zip file containing KML plus images, renamed to .kmz.
  • GeoRSS - RSS Feed/File enhanced with geospatial coordinate tags
  • ESRI Shapefile - An older binary format for GIS data. Data is stored in 3 separate files, one of which is a DBASE compatible database file.
  • .e00 files - An old crude text file ARC/INFO import format
  • GPX - GPS Exchange Format (XML based) - Google earth can read but some other apps might not.

See also


Map Table of Contents
Interactive Maps Storm Maps | United States Maps | Caribbean Maps
Storm maps Ike 2008 Maps | Hanna 2008 Maps | Gustav 2008 Maps
Regional maps Interactive Maps - Gulf Coast states | Interactive Maps - Atlantic coast south states
See also Category:Maps
Retrieved from "http://www.hurricanewiki.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ike_GIS_Resources"
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