Improving Public Safety with the Damage Assessment Mobile Application

About the Program

Category: Risk and Emergency Management (Best in Category)

Year: 2013

The Pierce County Department of Emergency Management (PCDEM) must be ready to respond to a wide range of potential emergencies with limited resources. Each winter, the county can experience flooding, ice and wind storms, and power outages. Also, the county contains Mt. Rainier and seismic fault zones which can cause region wide emergencies. During an emergency and long after a disaster, gathering information damage assessments is a time consuming and mission critical task. Previously, emergency personnel spent considerable time in the field surveying damage and taking notes by hand. These reports then needed to be relayed and manually entered into emergency computer systems. The entire process was time-consuming and led to slower response times. Pierce County created the Damage Assessment Mobile Application so that responders can quickly report damage using their smartphones. Reports are sent directly to the WebEOC Information Portal, where they are displayed on a situation map in near real-time in the Emergency Operations Center. Locations of damaged buildings, bridges, and roads are captured via GPS and sent with photos of the damage, thus improving the quality and accuracy of reports. The app greatly improved emergency communications and situational awareness during recent flooding events and exercises.