Deborah LewisGeog 90Final Project Report

I was recently deployed to Georgia to assist with Hurricane Michael relief. My role there was to

come up with the initial estimates for the quantities of debris found in the counties assigned to the

Corps of Engineers by FEMA, as well as to track the progress of debris removal operations once they

began.

Since my role on this deployment involved a lot of travel through southwest Georgia, and not a

lot of time for anything else, I thought I could create a map showing all of the counties affected by

Hurricane Michael in Georgia, add in my debris estimates and then create a separate inset of the debris

removal progress our contractor had made at the time of my departure from the mission. I used

ArcMap, as my work computer only has that program installed and, given it is a secure government

computer, I was unable to install ArcPro. I didn’t bring a personal computer on the mission with me. I

was hoping to learn enough basic mapping skills to be successful in my next GIS class and to be able to

utilize my skills in my biology work for USACE.

When I began the project, I was in southwestern Georgia and I was hoping to create something I

would be able to use day to day on the mission. Our team was provided a map of several of the

hurricane affected counties in Georgia by our contractor, and this inspired me to create a kind of living

map while deployed.

Map provided to USACE by the debris removal contractor.

I hoped that I would be able to track our percentage complete with the map and to be able to

create a product I could turn in for the project. Unfortunately, the hours I worked while

deployed, typically 14-16 a day, did not allow me the time to create the product I wanted.

I used ArcMap to create my map, as my government computer, the only computer I had

while deployed, did not have ArcPro and I cannot download anything to the computer. I began

by downloading the Georgia Emergency Management Agency’s (GEMA) debris estimates from

their website. It turned out these were the initial debris estimates I had provided to the

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Since these were my initial estimates, I

thought it a good place to start, and they were for 11 of the 13 counties FEMA decided qualified

for USACE assistance. I then added a basemap of imagery, but later deleted it.

Map with hurricane track, affected counties, and original estimates provided to GEMA.

Once I had the GEMA estimates as a layer, I added in a layer from the National Oceanic

and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to illustrate the hurricane’s track. I changed the color

and transparency on the track. Once I put the track in, I was able to add in a layer of all

affected counties that I got from the FEMA website. I highlighted the counties in Georgia by

selecting them and changing the symbolism on the selection to blue.

While trying to find the best way to represent the estimated debris data, I initially added

it as a data set to my main layer. That covered some of the other data I was trying to show in

the map, so I decided to add an inset to show the debris estimates. This left the main map with

the hurricane track, all of the counties affected, and those only in the state of Georgia with the

inset map showing the GEMA data.

My original idea, to have a living map that would show the percentages complete for

the debris removal gave me some trouble. I found I could not update the original estimates, as

the data was locked. After trying to reload the data and a few other ideas to try to be able to

manipulate the numbers, I saved the GEMA information as a separate shapefile, which I was

then able to change the estimate numbers on. I updated the estimates and changed the

symbology to show, by color, the amount of estimated debris in each FEMA approved county.

Creating symbology to represent, by color, the amount of debris in each county.

I repeated this process to create the debris removed layer as another inset. I used

green instead of reddish-brown for the removal and used the debris removed from reports our

contractor sent us daily. I took the amount of debris removed information from my last day on

the mission.

Example of part of a debris removal report from the contractor.

The biggest problems I had with creating the map were, forgetting to save my work,

figuring out how to adjust the estimated debris, and getting the map to look the way I wanted it

to. I locked up the program and lost work probably a dozen times before I remembered to save

at every step I did correctly. The forgetting to save did save me from some errors I made in

trying to save the GEMA data as a new shapefile though.

I had to ask someone I was deployed with how to get around the lockout on the GEMA

data. It was she that suggested I save it as a new shapefile and save the data separately. Once I

did that, and then added the newly saved shapefile to the map, I was able to go in and change

the estimated debris amounts. After changing the amounts, creating the new symbology was

easy. To save myself some possible grief when trying to get the debris removed amounts, I

saved the data once again as a new shapefile and added a field for debris removed. From

there, I went through the same process to create some symbology that made sense.

Getting the map to look like I wanted it to, took some playing around with moving labels

and such. If I zoomed in too much on the inset maps, the whole map didn’t show up. Zoom out

too far and it was too tiny to be read. I put the words above the insets on the data view page

itself, not on the layout view. When I realized how difficult this made the process, rather than

delete it, I was determined to make it work.

I wanted to put in a third inset to show the percentage complete, but I didn’t feel I had

time in which to do that. I didn’t work on the map as much as I thought I would while I was

deployed, and the majority of the work was done in the week since I’ve been back. I also would

have liked to create separate maps, rather than insets, to better be able to show the data and

add labels that could be read and more information. The insets didn’t provide the room in

which to do that. Ideally, I would have created four more detailed maps. One indicating the

path of the hurricane and the counties that were affected, possibly including the extent to

which they were affected by cubic yards of debris, households affected, or estimated financial

impact, one indicating the FEMA selected counties, with the initial debris estimates and the

changes to those estimates as we had more time on the ground to assess the damage, one to

show the rate of clean-up, and the last to show the percentage complete with both cubic yards

of debris and dollars spent.

The biggest thing I learned on creating this map is that by trying different things and

asking Google, you can do a lot with ArcMap. Given the exposure to ArcPro we had in class and

the minimal time we spent with ArcMap, I learned a whole lot about ArcMap and probably

forgot most of what we did with ArcPro. I would like to get better at both, or even either,

programs, as I enjoyed creating the map and data a lot.

Completed map of Hurricane Michael’s path, affected counties, estimated debris, and debris removed.