![]() Being able to leverage the cloud will deliver great benefits and help us be more resilient and less susceptible to power disruptions outside our control. "Having a dedicated technical team has been great for us. Nevertheless, she describes moving into the cloud as "Version 2.0," and she already sees several advantages. For further development of some of the applications desired in the future, a development environment that will allow more advanced configuration within GeoEvent Server will likely be needed. This is still using a production system, according to Cloos. The emphasis, in line with the requests of those stakeholders responsible for emergency management, was on a pared-down range of fields, giving only essential information. Each iteration refined the look of the dashboard concept, as well as the data collected. Given that location was central to much of what was being planned, GIS was a natural choice, and Esri assisted to stand up the enterprise environment.Īhead of going live, Port NOLA followed an agile development approach, with five separate iterations for its real-time environment. The scoping looked at what was needed locally and also harvested information about what other ports were doing. The initial scoping exercise for the EOC extended over two years, and Cloos describes stakeholder involvement as one of the major successes of the process. The ability to give people a common operating picture with the same metrics in terms of actual weather and other on-the-ground conditions in and around port facilities is going to be transformative," Cloos states. "It's exciting to be moving to more hands-on and dynamic emergency management. With this sheer number of stakeholders, it makes for a complex environment. Port NOLA has 70 industrial clients in addition to partner agencies such as flood protection authorities and multiple first- and second-responder organizations. Previously, stakeholder communication relating to extreme weather events was primarily telephone and email driven. In addition, local businesses on the flood side need to be able to make timely decisions on evacuating staff and key assets. Locomotives need to be behind floodgates before they are closed, and gantry crane operations have to be curtailed or the cranes parked and secured as wind speeds increase. Within the port, GeoEvent Server is used in conjunction with data from on-site, regional, and national monitoring assets to trigger alerts and actions when weather conditions hit certain thresholds. Monitoring at-sea conditions and vessel movements is the responsibility of the US Coast Guard. Our hurricane season lasts for half the year, but we also have to cope with lots of severe thunderstorms and, very occasionally, tornadoes," she says. "The biggest use case for us is hurricane related. In particular, says Port NOLA's GIS manager Maggie Cloos, the extended difficulties caused by mass power outages as a result of Ida underlined the need for better communication and information dissemination. The work to create the center extends as far back as 2015, but it was 2021's Hurricane Ida-a Category 4 storm-that provided the biggest catalyst for the EOC's realization. It uses ArcGIS GeoEvent Server to drive a series of dashboards, which facilitate real-time decision-making. Intended to facilitate the protection of life, safety, and property during severe weather events and to resume operations as soon as possible, the EOC will see staff responsible for emergency management sheltering in place and continuing to operate. ![]() Port NOLA's new EOC will use GIS to increase weather awareness and maintain safe operations.Īs the Port of New Orleans (Port NOLA) entered into the 2022 hurricane season, it did so with a new geographic information system (GIS)-based Emergency Operations Center (EOC) coming online. ![]()
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