The final class project for Emergency Management Planning asked students to use Google Map technology to present information in comprehensible and usable forms. The objective of this assignment was to challenge students to synthesize material from the course and present it in a way that was meaningful to them and useful to the community.
Google Map is freely accessible through any web browser. Mash-ups in Google Map use images and tags for simple maps, or combined with other Application Programing Interface (API), such as Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, You Tube, to create more complex Mash-ups. Students could choose how to make their own Mash-up. They were required to use all the information they could cull from this class – lectures, discussions, readings, videos, guest talks, field trip – to synthesize an aspect of Emergency Management (emergency preparedness, emergency response, disaster recovery, or hazard mitigation) in a way that applied to Pitt County or the City of Greenville in North Carolina, and present this information through a Mash-up.
Project Description: The mash-up that I will present on Thursday the 28th will be about Floodplain mitigation. I have used Google Maps to designate an area of Greenville, NC that will show people who live in the designated area if they reside in the floodplain. I will also show on the map a series of examples of homes and residencies and what kinds of mitigation options are available to them and from whom. It will also show them who to contact about making use of on of these mitigation options. The objective is to provide a place for people to check to see if they are in a floodplain and what they can do to mitigate damages in the future.
The map designates an area starting north from 10th Street and extends about two miles north and covers most of the metropolitan and residential Greenville area are affected by the 100 and 500 year floodplains. The blue on the map designates a 100 year floodplain and the green designates a 500 year floodplain. The different examples will be shown by a place mark and will contain a picture of the residence and the mitigation options available.
Project Description: My Google Map assesses the risk for students in the Brewster building if a disaster were to occur during the middle of the day. I have investigated the capacity of both the Brewster building and the Rivers building in order to compare how many people are in each during three specific points during a Monday or a Tuesday. I have located the flood plain that is pertinent to the area surrounding Brewster and the correlating dorms and sorority/fraternity housing. I have also listed important emergency phone numbers and procedures for various disasters if they were to occur on campus.
The objective of my Google Map is to understand the risk for ECU students if a disaster were to occur on campus. The focus is flooding, however, that is not the only potential disaster to occur on campus. I think this map helps understand visually the complications of where the flood plain is and the number of students and how spread out they are to assess the risk of these students during a disaster.
The audience of my Map includes ECU Students, their family and friends, ECU Police and the rescue teams. My Map is able to help them understand what specific part of campus floods, as well as gives an estimate of the number of people who could be located in the dorms or fraternity/sorority housing around campus. These places are where students live and spend most of their time and perhaps will be seeking shelter at these places during a disaster.
I think this map is truly helpful to the audience. I think it is important to also point out that this map is for Emergency planners on campus. There is no list of shelters for students to go to available anywhere on the website. I believe ECU anticipates a full 100% evacuation from the students in the case of an emergency, but natural disasters are not the only disasters to occur. I believe it is important for safety to have information on the capacity of each building and this information is not only unknown but nonexistent. This map truly serves the purpose of locating the weak areas in the emergency plan on campus and provides ECU students along with their family, friends and potential rescuers the information to help save their lives in the chance of any type of disaster.
Project Description: Flood zones are shown along with swine operations in Pitt County NC. This is to help with mitigation efforts for flood situations to prevent hog waste from entering NC streams, rivers, and tributaries.
Through out the course of this semester, mitigation strategies and hazards have been examined from many different angles. Through the evolution of this course my original project ideation of risk mitigation in flood situations for Pitt County has took an environmental turn and led me to examine animal operations that are located within the flood plain of Pitt County.
This project compiles two technologies to create a user friendly map. The first technology used was Geographical Information Systems (GIS). GIS was used to incorporate flood zone, and animal operation data into a Google Map. I selected only animal operations that were located within flood zones, all of these animal operations were swine farming operations. GIS allowed me to use latitude and longitude to pin point the location of these swine farms, otherwise I feel it would have been practically impossible to locate these farms. Farm owners seem to be very secretive about the location of their facilities. Therefore this Google Map focuses on swine farming operations in Pitt County that are located within the flood plain.
One objective of this project is to educate others by showing them where these risky swine farms are located, and the potential impacts associated with hog farms that are located in the flood zone. The Google Map is also intended to be used as a tool to gain community support for another objective. New regulations state that "No component of manure management system within 100 year floodplain" (NC Pork Council). How is it then that these farms are still able to operate? It is understood that swine farms make up a large percentage of eastern North Carolinas economy but at what cost to the people living here? These operations would be too expensive for an ordinary farmer to move without incentives or help from the government, but many of these farms are owned by large companies such as Smithfield. If Smithfield was told they had to move these farms they could possibly just relocate to a different state causing economic hardships for many North Carolinians. The main objective that would be easier to accomplish with community support, would be to relocate all hog farms that are located within the 100 year flood zones. This Google Map can be used as a beginning tool, to show how important it is that these farms are relocated. By using Google Maps, I have created an interactive and informative educational tool for a variety of users, with a purpose of helping to relocate risky swine farms in Pitt County NC.
This Google- Map has been created for a variety of users. It can be used by everyday citizens to educate themselves on risky hog farms. It could also be used as a presentation piece, shown to local government officials in attempts to find a means to relocate these selected swine farms. This map can help all of these individuals as it is a data rich source. The map shows nine hog farms all of which are located within the flood plain. When one clicks on the icon denoting hog farms a text box pops up in this text box there is information about the owner of the hog farm, the design capacity of the farm, the total weight of animals at the farm, and a description of the hogs at the farm. There is also an aerial picture of each farm taken form Google Earth. Several farms in particular has a link to more photos which were taken by me, in some of the photos one will see the hog farm, a stream located by one of the farms, and numerous posted and no trespassing signs. None of the photos take by me show hog lagoons, lagoons are well out of view from the road, and the only way to get a picture would be to trespass. There is also and information icon which brings up links to multiple resources, such as a student presentation by Wyatt Thrope on the Health Effects of Hog Farms. There are other links to items such as: permit information for hog farms, a video tour of a hog farm, an informational virtual tour from beginning to end of hog operations, photos from hog farm flooding during hurricane Floyd, and NC pork council regulations. All of these links are useful and very informative. It is a very strong educational tool, and should be helpful in the process of trying to relocate hog farms. While relocation may be expensive this mitigation strategy could greatly reduce environmental and health risks associated with flooded hog farms.
Project Description: This mash-up highlights the flood mitigation practices that have been put into place in properties located within flood plains.
The mash-up that we have created conducts an assessment of a variety of properties located within floodplains in a specific area of study in Greenville, North Carolina. Our area of study consists of land located within a 1.5 mile radius of East Carolina University's main campus. The mash-up contains information regarding flood mitigation practices that have been implemented in the past, as well as the mitigation strategies being used today. Also, successful and unsuccessful mitigation tactics that have been used in North Carolina history are analyzed and described in detail. Much of the information for our mash-up was derived from the 2004 Greenville, NC Hazard Mitigation Plan, as well as a State-issued publication titled Hazard Mitigation in North Carolina: Measuring Success. The mash-up aims to inform residents of Greenville, as well as ECU students of the current flood mitigation techniques and their implementation status. Whether or not these properties have taken appropriate steps to adhere to the Hazard Mitigation plan, as well statutory regulations is touched upon in our mash-up. The mash-up is especially important for ECU students because of the locations of certain student housing communities including Dockside and Riverwalk. Both of these subdivisions house numerous ECU students. A specific incident discussed in the mash-up involves the death of an ECU student during Hurricane Floyd. The ECU student was killed by rising floodwaters at Wyndham Circle Apartments, which at the time, had weak flood mitigation tactics in place. The overall city flood mitigation plan is referenced in the mash-up in order to show how each properties' mitigation tactics come together and form the overall comprehensive flood mitigation plan. Different principles and practices of both structural and non-structural mitigation are analyzed. Certain properties have engineered physical infrastructure systems to help prevent flooding, such as the Science and Technology building. Non-structural mitigation practices were implemented at Wyndham Circle Apartments after the disastrous flooding that occurred due to Hurricane. These controversial mitigation tactics are common after a disaster. The concept of acquisition is shown by describing the Greenville Town Commons and how the city of Greenville bought the property in order to transform it into a park that also serves as a wetland buffer between Downtown Greenville and the Tar River. The present mitigation tactics and location of these properties as they relate to the floodplain can be helpful when people are deciding where to live, based on the preparedness of housing developments, and if more information is wanted on the subject of flood mitigation preparation in the ECU Campus area. This mash-up provides the tools and sources necessary to gain a further understanding of flood mitigation tactics and can to help those access the risk factors for those who choose live within a 1.5 mile radius of ECU's main Campus.
Project Description: This map refers to the Pitt County Emergency Management Plan and overlays the noted shelters, fire, police, and rescue services, medical services, and evacuation routes.
The Google Map that we have created is a simple map displaying all of the locations of services in the event of a disaster. The map was designed to be readily available to the general public so it was kept fairly simple for that reason. The map includes fire stations, law enforcement agencies, shelters, and evacuation routes that can all be utilized in the response to a natural disaster or any other major emergency. Most of the locations were pulled directly from a draft of Pitt County's Hazard Mitigation Plan. The locations included fire departments, law enforcement agencies and schools that could be used for possible shelters. We created the evacuation routes using our own knowledge of the Pitt County area and the locations of the various fire department, EMS, and shelter locations. The evacuation routes do not spread to the East due to the simple fact that during a natural disaster that can bring in flooding and storm systems, it is most likely that the storms will come from the coast to the east and that those areas will be affected worse than the Greenville area.
In all there were sixteen critical Fire Rescue facilities in Greenville and the surrounding areas. The reason we included these sixteen departments in our map is that they would most likely be the agencies to respond in case of an emergency. The agencies would probably be available to give shelter, food, and water to the needy at their base location if needed. There were three first aid agencies which included Pitt County Memorial Hospital, American Red Cross, and the American Red Cross Blood Services. This is not to say that the public's first aid needs will be limited to these agencies and locations, but in the case of an emergency these will most likely be the most crucial agencies in response. There were two rescue squads that were also included in the Hazard Mitigation Plan that we included in the map because they would also be a huge part of search and rescue efforts in the event of an emergency. There were five major law enforcement agencies in the map including the National Guard. In emergencies law enforcement are always right beside fire and rescue teams, and are also a major part of assisting and performing emergency duties. There are twelve shelters included in the map, ten of which are schools provided by the Pitt County Hazard Mitigation Plan. The schools are included because they offer large building with readily available space, bathrooms, and generally cafeterias. In case of an emergency these schools will play a major part in sheltering people who have lost their homes and possessions. The other two included are the ECU Minges Coliseum and the Greenville Convention Center simply because of their size and ability to house large numbers of people in case of an emergency.
Our map was designed to assist the public in case of an emergency and lead them to where they will be able to receive medical attention or basic needs. It was kept simple in hopes that it would not confuse the general public or overwhelm them with information in a time when their minds and bodies will already be exhausted.
Project Description: Map of a mash-up of Pitt county focused around Greenville. It Maps around the Tar River and Green Mill Creek focusing on flooding and mitigation.
Our Google map looks at Pitt County and its flood zones with a focus on Greenville. It revolves around the possible flooding issues that the Green Mill Run Creek system presents to ECU and the surrounding areas. Since the major flooding in 1999 with Hurricane Floyd, Greenville and Pitt County have made major strides in dealing with flooding mitigation with the Tar River. Some things that we have noticed while working on this project is the lack of flood mitigation of the Green Mill Run Creek system. Running through Greenville and around campus, if flooded, the Green Mill Run poses a major threat to not only ECU but also the Greenville community itself. We looked at the Green Mill Run Creek in relation to ECU and the city Greenville then proposed simple and easy to do non-structural mitigation technique to help reduce the possibility of flooding.
The objective of our project is to bring to light the dangers, problems, and possible solutions to help alleviate flooding in the Green Mill Run Creek. The map shows some new dangers that could cause the increase in flooding. The dangers presented in our project are a structural mitigation technique in the form of a retaining wall that is being built by the new apartment complex called The Province. This wall produces unnecessary runoff into the Green Mill Creek and also does not allow for proper flow leaving standing water. The Province built their apartment complex right on top of a seasonally flooded wetland (Palustrine Wetland), now the creek overflow has nowhere to go but down stream or back up and cause worse flooding upstream. Also in our project and after some research, one of our objectives was to propose an easy mitigation solution suggesting that Greenville should keep the areas located underneath its bridges free from build up and debris. By doing this the flow of the Green Mill Creek will be unobstructed and be less likely to build up and over flow producing unnecessary flooding. Another objective was to propose that Greenville obtain the land in-between Evans St. and Charles Blvd. This land could be used to create a natural buffer allowing the Green Mill Creek to flood naturally without hindering the surrounding areas. We also wanted to make mention about phase 2 of the Greenway Trail, that runs along side of the Green Mill Creek, in which they are in the process of creating. This is a form of non-structural mitigation between 5th street and the Tar River in which the Trail essentially gives the Green Mill Creek the ability to flow more easily into the Tar River in turn helping to alleviate flooding in other areas off the creek and off of 5th street.
By proposing these mitigation ideas in and around ECU we are helping to provide the ECU administration with ideas for future planning. Also the benefits of our map are not just limited to ECU but to the surrounding Greenville community, Students, and the Pitt County Planners. This map provides the community, students, ECU, and Pitt county information on the Green Mill Creek and the possible effects it will have on Greenville. ECU being the main focus of Greenville and really a major part of Pitt county the damage of flooding could have adverse effects both to the university and to the city of Greenville. The non-structural mitigation suggested may not be the most effective or best for the area but what it does provide is a tool to get ideas flowing while providing a groundwork of important areas that should be taken into consideration for future plans.
Project Description: Problem areas in Grenville NC, including flood prone areas, Blight areas in those flood prone areas that could be used as flood plains. Also going to indicate areas of lower social class which could be relocated to prevent them from being in hazardous areas. I will outlay the 100 and 500 year flood plains. These indicated areas will allow us to understand the risk areas in Greenville that are less likely to be able to help themselves in a hazardous situation, so we can better plan for how we can get these people out of the situation if it happens.
Due to Greenville, North Carolinas, past history of common reoccurrence of water accumulation throughout the area, our group has decided to create a map of the flood recovery process for the Greenville/Pitt County area. This map will specifically be developed to be user friendly; therefore our audience can be the average citizen in Greenville.
So far we have found numerous websites that have information from previous floods that we will use to excerpt our data from. These sites and written documents have been put together by the City of Greenville Planning Department, Emergency Management agency and other local departments. With these publications we are going to be able to extract information and translate the data it into a visual map. We have found through previous records that most plans were rewritten after hurricane Floyd.
Through the Pitt County Flood Recovery Final Report we found that hurricane Floyd in 1999 demolished Greenville and surrounding areas. Floyd set record high water buildups in the area. This was due to previous storms already filling up aquifers like the Tar River, which is Greenville dominant water collector during emergency flooding. Therefore once Floyd brought its extreme perspiration the water didn't have anywhere to go developing standing water in multiple places. This makes the time after Floyd went through Greenville, our best duration to retrieve accurate data to create our hazard recovery information. The Greenville website and Flood Land Reuse Plan has already designated areas in the city that were hit at different levels by Floyd which will show and categorize our flood areas and give descriptions for each on how they were affected.
We found on the Greenville Hazard and Mitigation Plan important buildings and structures that are within the flood ways, and 100 year flood zones like the; Greenville Fire Department, Greenville Utilities and Operation Center, Greenville's Main Electronic Sub Station, Waste Water Treatment Center, and labeled them on our map and what their functions are
Project Description: Unlike the plan currently in place, which primarily uses local schools as vaccination sites, this emergency plan utilizes Greenville's voting precincts, commonly known locations to citizens, as vaccination clinics, thereby allowing for quicker clarification of each citizen's assigned clinic and a more organized and even distribution of people. The Pitt County Public Health Department will hire nursing staffs for each clinic and maintain vaccination records with the NC Immunization Registry. At each clinic, citizens will be educated by a Public Health official on the virus and receive the flu vaccination.
This mash-up has been specifically designed for the citizens of the city of Greenville, North Carolina in the event of an extreme flu outbreak. During such an event, the sick will be at local doctor's offices and the Pitt County Memorial Hospital, therefore demanding the implementation of "vaccination clinics" within the community to protect its uninfected citizens. The emergency plan currently in place uses local schools as the vaccination clinics, thus not only disrupting school, but also putting susceptible children at risk for contracting the potentially deadly virus. This revised emergency plan utilizes Greenville's voting precincts as the vaccination clinics, which are commonly known locations to citizens and therefore allow for quicker clarification of each citizen's assigned clinic and a more organized and even distribution of people. The assigned precincts are places of ample parking and inside room to accommodate a large volume of people and a wide spectrum of ages. (There will be approximately 3,676 people assigned to each clinic.) This mash-up seeks to provide a clear and informative visual aid to clarify the location and specific information of the designated clinics to their assigned citizens. It also provides helpful and informative websites for local government and news information, along with educational videos about the influenza virus and how to protect oneself.
The Pitt County Health Department will be the official government branch in charge of the plan, and thus responsible for hiring a nursing staff for each clinic and maintaining vaccination records with the NC Immunization Registry. Due to ongoing shipments of the vaccine to the Pitt County Health Department, the vaccinations will be given several days a week until all Greenville citizens have received their vaccine. Volunteers, such as retired nurses and county health officials, will be stationed at each clinic to match people arriving to those on their list for that specific vaccination location, relay information, and provide a sense of stability and calmness. While people wait at the vaccination clinics, they will be educated by the nurses with flyers and brief videos, but also by an educated and specifically trained official giving a continuously repeated speech concerning the vaccine and the virus, thus ensuring that the public has the opportunity to be as knowledgeable and informed as possible. Also, to assist those without personal transportation, once the County Commissioners deem it an emergency, Pitt Area Transit will suspend regular transportation and set up "emergency transportation" routes to assist in maintaining organization and equal opportunity for vaccination among citizens.
Citizens must know which clinic they are assigned to, for each location will receive only a specific number of doses of the vaccine to cover those assigned to that particular clinic/precinct. For those who are unaware of their assigned voting precinct, they may find this information on the Pitt County government website listed on the mash-up page. People showing up at unassigned vaccine locations can receive the vaccine, but the clinics must communicate with each other to document who has been vaccinated. As well as on the mash-up site, maps of the assigned clinics for vaccines will be on the Pitt County Public Health's website; PittTv, Greenville's PEG channel; and available on the local news channels, newspapers, and announced on local radio stations in both English and Spanish. In addition, the EOC call lines will be open and ready for concerned citizens to call in with their questions.
Upon such an outbreak, the immediate implementation of this emergency plan would provide vaccinations in a safe, organized, and efficient manner to Greenville citizens so that the virus could not continue to rampantly spread. This mash-up provides an organized and informative map of the voting precincts, turned vaccination clinics, along with essential data and helpful local government and news websites, furthering the possible knowledge with which the citizens of Greenville can arm themselves to combat the spread of the flu virus.
Project Description: This map shows the floodway as well as the 100 & 500 year floodplains in the selected area of Greenville, NC. Information regarding losses incurred by Hurricane Floyd are included and used as an example of the extent of flood damage that can result from a hurricane.
Our Google mash-up is about the different land uses in the East Carolina University area and how they are both affected by floods and mitigated to prevent future losses. The land uses that we focused on are industrial, residential, and institutional. In our mash-up we include an outline of three different land use areas that are all in close proximity to each other to try to ensure that hurricane Floyd affected them as similarly as possible. We then gave a general write up of background information and damages that each area received during the hurricane Floyd flood. We then added multiple images of the damage done by the flood in each land use area that we chose. Along with background and damage reports we selected sites in each land use area that was mitigated after Floyd. We added pictures of these mitigation techniques and brief write ups describing each. In addition to these informational icons and outlined highlighted areas we added information on Hurricane Floyd itself and a link to the FEMA Remote Sensing Map showing the areas in Greenville that were flooded in the aftermath of Floyd. We also added an icon with information on the Greenville Flood land Reuse Plan and outlined the 100 and 500 year flood plain.
Objectives: The objective of our mash-up is to educate the audience on the devastation that floods can conflict on different land uses and how these different land uses use different mitigation techniques depending on the area and situation. Our objective was to make a user friendly map that can assist and educate multiple parties of professionals and non-professionals alike on the mitigation differences between different land uses. In an end result we hope that it will help everyone make better decisions when it comes to flood mitigation. Ultimately this will help better prepare the people and the communities for flood hazards.
Audiences: We made this mash-up with a specific audience in mind up it is useful to almost any audience. Our main targeted audience is the planning community including practicing planners and planning students. Flood hazards are a possibility in almost every community and planners must be well educated and familiar with the damage that can be caused and the mitigation practices that can reduce the vulnerability of these communities. These parties can quickly go through our map and get a crash course in flood hazard mitigation and the lessons taken from this mash-up can help these people make better educated decisions when dealing with flood hazards in other areas.
Most planners agree that the education of the individuals in communities is a key ingredient to the success of any kind of project implementation. In the case of flood hazards this is no exception. Mitigation practices must be implemented and to gain the cooperation of the community they must be educated in the damages and mitigation techniques as well. This makes concerned citizens an equally important audience then we considered while making our mash-up.
Hopefully each individual party will analyze this mash-up and draw the same conclusions that we did from our research. Each land use must be handled differently when it comes to flood mitigation. It must be taken into account the areas land use purposes, its vulnerability, and the resources or things of value on the properties.
Project Description:What we have learned from Hurricane Katrina is that after a major disaster incidents of crime can rise. The amounts of criminal activities that were reported in the Superdome and other areas surrounding New Orleans is a testament to that ideal. This map will show the flood areas along with targets for crime, policing entities, and areas of interest related to crime if a disaster were to strike Greenville, NC. Seeing as how according to: (http://www.city-data.com/city/Greenville-North-Carolina.html) Greenville is the #88 least safe city in the country, crime may be a problem especially after a disaster.
My google map is about crime in the city of Greenville, NC after a major disaster, in this case a flood. The primary concentration of the map highlights the floodplain (showing the original floodplain, 100 and 500 year floodplain combined) which covers the city of Greenville, the policing units which could help in case of a major disaster, the least safe area in Greenville, and areas which could be targets of looting. As we have learned in class, looting is an ambiguous term and is also a loaded term which could hold political and social implications. What one person may view as "looting" others may view as "doing what is necessary for survival." That is why the map will show targets for looting not only as department stores, but places that become targets because they have what people need to survive, such as grocery stores.
The objective of this project is to identify unsafe areas that not only lie along the floodplain, but areas that also have a higher concentration of crime, and what areas may be vulnerable to an increase of crime due to the police officers and other law enforcement units becoming overwhelmed by the disaster and their other duties. The map will also point out that many of the units that could offer assistance lie either directly in the floodplain, or very close to it. If a flood were to be the cause of a disaster there is a possibility that the disaster may render some of our policing units ineffective because of their location relative to the floodplain which is another cause for concern and something that may need further evaluation by the city of Greenville.
The audience for this map pertains primarily to residents of Greenville, law enforcement officers, and city planners of Greenville, however it can be useful to many others. The map can be a useful tool and overall, very helpful in preparation for a disaster as well as identifying areas of interest when looking at a "crime perspective" after a disaster has occurred. If a major flood were to occur a person could look at my map and find areas to avoid. A police officer could look at the map and see what area in Greenville is the least safe, and also what area has the highest number of sexual predators and needs the most police attention. This map could also help city planners when they notice that the majority of police units are concentrated in a small area and is very close to the floodplain. This is an issue that may need to be reevaluated to avoid having a disaster become a potential catastrophe. While the map has been shown to be very useful for specific purposes, I also feel that the map can be useful for general information as well. The map shows many different policing units in Greenville that will help me because I am looking for an internship in the area of homeland security/criminal justice, and this map has helped me by finding those areas and defining what their particular jobs are. It also helps with general knowledge because it identifies stores in Greenville which could be helpful, unsafe areas to avoid in Greenville (which is a good source of common knowledge to have) and areas that could flood by heavy rains alone (such as the bottom of College Hill and the parking lot that I have identified). While the primary objective lies around the basis of a disaster (such as a flood) effecting Greenville, this map has been shown to serve multiple beneficial purposes.
Project Description: Available Medical Care Resources during a catastrophic event in Pitt County, NC.
Project Description: During a crisis situation, ECU has developed their own emergency management plan. During this crisis period, ECU has two levels of of crisis: A Level One Emergency involves response and resources from within the university only. A Level Two Emergency requires assistance from individuals or agencies external to the university. The Campus Incident Commander may elevate a Level One to Level Two as needed to provide for the protections of the public, students, and staff. Greenville Fire and Rescue will assume Incident Command for any situation under their responsibilities. At the onset of an emergency, the Emergency Coordinator (University Incident Commander) or designee shall proclaim a state of emergency. Termination of a state of emergency shall be declared by the Emergency Management Team or designee.
This Google map mash-up is a depiction of where students would turn in the event of a disaster on campus, which would render Student Health Services unavailable for assistance. Student Health Services is the place where any student should turn to when seeking medical treatment under the Pearce and Pearce student insurance. The information on this map is relevant information because all students are required to purchase the insurance policy if they do not have an alternative valid policy privately. This map will enable them to seek treatment quickly in the EMS vehicle and rest assured that the provider will not turn them away because that particular physician's office does not accept Pearce and Pearce, BCBS insurance. A student having insurance is a necessary part of ensuring student success. One costly wreck could potentially force a student to leave the university, and as a result reduce their chances of returning to obtain their degree later in their life.
My objective was to provide information to the students, in need of medical care, during a disaster situation to maintain their safety and well-being. The insurance policy that was implemented this past year requires that the students purchase the policy at an additional rate of $442.50 per semester. The student is required to go to the Student Health Center for most non-emergency and some after hours emergency needs. If the SHS makes a determination that the students needs specialized medical care, then they will provide the student with a referral name to a physician that operates in-network. This scenario changes dramatically during a disaster situation on campus. The campus provides two levels of disaster in their Emergency Operations Plan. Level I situations are handled within the university without any intervention from outside resources. Level II situation is on that requires the assistance of outside agencies (city and county entities). The Incident commander, the Chancellor, can increase the emergency level quickly and within their discretionary opinion only.
My audience for this project would include a wide range of individuals. Students could use the information all throughout their college career. The map also provides a tangible tool that their parents could access if they were not familiar with the Pitt County/Greenville area. This type of information would provide an access point where parents could meet their children without going through the ECU emergency call center. The call center is utilized during a disaster, but the operators can not provide student specific information to the concerned parents or guardians a smaller medical facility could provide a location for them if not specific medical care information. University personnel, who are not familiar with the crisis levels on campus or referral areas, could also use this information to assist students in an expedient manner.
This map can provide much needed basic information for the audience. During a crisis, the transportation system completely stops running routes. The transport system remains available for assistance with evacuation of university residence and personnel as the incident becomes more severe. When this occurs, individuals must use their own vehicles as time permits to evacuate; however, in a medical emergency, the university works with the county fire departments to coordinate EMS efforts. The map provides the distance from the university, which is important because EMS charges $15.00 per mile for transport. The map also provides directions for individuals doing self-transport, or for family members to find their loved one during this occurrence. The individual pinpoints provide information on the type of service that the individual medical facilities specialize in should the student need that type of care.
The finding during my research was quite different than I had anticipated. I thought the insurance was going to be useless to the students if they had a specific type of issue that the SHS could not assist the student in healing. At some universities that may be the case; however, we are a medically focused university. Contrary to what I had anticipated, every facility that I focused on had a tie to the university and as a result would be on the in-network physician insurance listing that SHS would utilize upon referral.
Project Description: This map serves the purpose of being a single location to search for citizens who are attempting to prepare for an imminent disaster. Using this map will allow citizens to do many things such as: obtain contact information for emergency responders, establish which shelter (school) is closest to them by looking at the place marks on the map, find the best evacuation route, and utilize checklists from the Greenville E.O.P to ensure they are fully informed of the actions taken by the Greenville emergency personnel on their behalf. As well as having a link to view up to date weather from the local news station, access to hurricane safety tips, and FEMA's instructions on how to assemble a safety kit. It is believed that this map will better protect citizens of Pitt County from the disasters as well as minimizing panic if a disaster strikes.
Originally our project was focused on emergency responders, but in our research we found that they already have all the information that they need, and any issues that they do have are in policy and funding both of which we couldn't do anything to change. However in our research we found that there was no single source of information geared towards citizens, an equivalent in use as the Emergency Operations Plan that the government uses, but for citizens, however much simpler and concise. That gave us an idea as to what we could do for a genuinely original and useful project.
This map serves the purpose of being a single location to search for citizens who are attempting to prepare for an imminent disaster. Using this map will allow citizens to do many things such as: obtain contact information for emergency responders, establish which shelter (school) is closest to them by looking at the place marks on the map, find the best evacuation route, and utilize checklists from the Greenville E.O.P to ensure they are fully informed of the actions that are being taken by the Greenville emergency personnel on their behalf. As well as having a link to view up to date weather from the local news station, access to hurricane safety tips, and FEMA's instructions on how to assemble a safety kit. It is believed that this map will better protect citizens of Pitt County from the disasters as well as minimizing panic if a disaster strikes.
Our objective for this map was to create a tool that contains all vital information needed for concerned citizens to prepare for a coming disaster. We have included all information that we believed would help an average citizen of Pitt County to better prepare for an oncoming disaster. It was our hope that if a person were to utilize that they would be safer and better prepared as a result.
Our Google map as previously mentioned is geared towards the common citizen, therefore simplicity is a must. We believe that we have achieved a simple, informative, tool that will help citizens to prepare for a disaster.
In summary, we feel strongly that the map we have created has real world qualities. The map is simple to use yet contains a lot of relevant information that can be used as a helpful safety tool and guide. Our personal goal at the beginning of this project was to create something that can be realistically used as opposed to something that seemed interesting, yet had no real world applicability. We are confident that this goal has been obtained and look forward to presenting our work.
Project Description: The Pitt County Emergency Evacuation Plan on Google Maps depicts possible evacuation routes out of the Pitt County area. To assist evacuees, this map details North Carolina State Highway Patrol Stations with corresponding contact information, hospitals along posted evacuation routes, and the population of all incorporated municipalities within Pitt County. The map incorporates information from the U.S. Census Bureau, the North Carolina State Highway Patrol, Eastern North Carolina hospitals and medical centers, and The American Red Cross.
Objective: The purpose of the Pitt County Emergency Evacuation Plan is to assist individuals who are attempting to evacuate the area following or before an anticipated large-scale disaster. This map is intended to direct an evacuation as a result of a disaster resulting from any nonspecific natural hazard. The intent is to present an array of evacuation options so that individuals can make their own informed decisions on evacuation procedures given the circumstances surrounding the specific incident.
Audience: Citizens of Pitt County, NC are the intended audience for this map. Specifically, this map most benefits individuals seeking to leave Pitt County prior to the strike of an anticipated large-scale disaster within the area. Nevertheless, this map would still be beneficial to individuals evacuating after a disaster had struck. Utilizing the Pitt County Emergency Evacuation Plan after a disaster has first occurred is, however, limited in in that routes and resources may be overwhelmed or even compromised in the wake of the situation. Finally, this information could also be beneficial to citizens in the surrounding Eastern North Carolina area despite the fact that this map is directly intended for use by Pitt County residents.
Assistance: Evacuation Routes - By highlighting several major highways and roadways throughout Pitt County and the larger Eastern North Carolina area, evacuees can better plan transportation routes. Evacuation routes are coded, with the following colors representing specific directions: (1) red represents north, (2) blue represents south, (3) aqua represents west, and (4) pink represents east. Northern evacuation routes extend to the NC/Virginia state line, southern evacuation routes extend to the NC/South Carolina state line, western evacuation routes extend to Raleigh, and eastern evacuation routes extend to the Outer Banks area. The intent is to guide evacuees out of the affected area to safe locations where these individuals can regroup.
Population Data: The population of all incorporated Pitt County municipalities is posted on the map. A recommended or forced evacuation displaces a great number of individuals. Thus, the population data is intended to assist evacuees in planning travel routes which would avoid the majority of traffic congestion. North Carolina State Highway Patrol
A considerable amount of traffic congestion and possible obstructed roadways often occurs before or after a disaster situation. Thus, the North Carolina State Highway Patrol is information source on problems as they arise. HP substations are marked along the possible evacuation routes. Under each tag, the following information is listed: the physical address of the substation, substation telephone numbers, the HP website address, the HP emergency telephone number, and the Raleigh headquarters telephone number. As many phone lines could be overloaded with callers, a variety of telephone numbers are included to ensure evacuees can contact the HP.
Hospital Locations: Many individuals opt not to leave before an impending disaster because immediate relatives or associates have health concerns making evacuation difficult. To aid in mitigating this trend multiple hospital locations are posted along evacuation routes. The physical address, website address, and telephone number are posted under each corresponding hospital marker.
The American Red Cross: Another critical consideration for evacuation is the issue of temporary shelter and housing. The American Red Cross plays a critical role in coordinating establishing temporary accommodations for victims displaced by disaster. Thus, the physical locations of American Red Cross Chapters are posted along and near evacuations routes. In addition to the physical address, corresponding telephone numbers and website addresses are posted under each American Red Cross Chapter marker.