PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
August 2017
531
Final Timeline
The timeline achieved by Surdex was exemplary, as exhibited
in the summary table above. The projected flood crest was the
early morning hours of Wednesday, May 3.
This was accomplished by both good planning and a work-
force willing to work the extra hours to achieve the 24 hour
timeline from completion of acquisition.
Experience with Usage to Date
At the time of the writing of this paper, reports regarding the
analysis being done by users with the imagery acquired by
Surdex is limited as many responders are still in the field. The
distribution of links to the imagery include the following users:
•
Through the Missouri GIS Advisory Council (MGISAC)
listserv mechanism, reaching many state and local entities.
•
Direct contact with MSD, SEMA and many public works
departments in cities and town affected.
•
Various local media outlets, most notably KMOV-TV.
•
The US Army Corps of Engineers, St. Louis District.
The initial use of the imagery appears to primarily concen-
trating on assessing the extent of the flooding and compar-
isons to flood model projections. Paul H. Rydlund of the
US Geological Survey, Data Chief for the Surface Water
Program stated, “Our benefit from this was an active flood
inundation mapping project that was underway. The imag-
ery provided peak verification (via flood extent) at a couple
of reaches of the Meramec River for us during our modeling
and mapping efforts.”
Abraham Cook of the Franklin County Emergency Manage-
ment Agency (EMA) noted that the agency’s GIS department
digitized a shapefile representing the impact from Surdex’s
imagery. From this, impacted structures were defined – some
of which were unreachable by vehicle. EMA also used data
extracted from the imagery during participation in the FEMA
(Federal Emergency Management Agency) Preliminary Dam-
age Assessment, and there are plans to compare the flood
extent against the flood models by the mitigation groups.
The Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) also
utilized the imagery. According to a Professional Engineer
at the department, “It was great to see the amount of near-
immediate imagery available for the Meramec River flood
impact area provided by Surdex. This imagery service
Key Steps in the Emergency Response Timeline
Event/Task
Time/Date Span
Elapsed Time (Hours)
Decision to acquire imagery
9am, Tuesday, May 2
0
Mission planning and preparation
10am – 11:30am, May 2
2.5
First flight
12:07pm – 1:31pm, May 2
4.5
Second flight
3:20pm – 4:36pm, May 2
7.5
Production
5pm, May 2 – 4pm May 3
31.0
Image service startup
5pm, May 3
32.0
assisted us in managing the impact to our transportation
system. In the future, we will use these tools to do an even
better job of incorporating the imagery into our Emergency
Operations Center (EOC) processes.”
Local KMOV-TV featured the imagery with the before-
and-after scenario using the swipe slider bar to illustrate
to St. Louis area viewers and to assist in raising donations
to various charity funds addressing those affected by the
flooding.
Past Disaster Response
Mapping
Surdex is highly adept at handling projects during such
disasters. Prior to this Meramec River flooding, Surdex had
conducted a number of responses in recent years:
•
The deadly Joplin, Missouri, tornado in 2011.
•
The Bridgeton, Missouri, tornado in 2011 – which
destroyed parts of the Lambert International Airport
terminals in St Louis.
•
The Great Flood of 1993 in the St. Louis area.
•
Tom Sauk Reservoir failure in 2005 near Lesterville,
Missouri.
In each of these cases, Surdex made the data available to the
public and responders, without restrictions on distribution.
Disaster response is focused on expediting various phases
to achieve a timely product – generally within 24 hours of
completion of the data acquisition for events such as flooding,
tornadoes, and other storm-related natural disasters. Hurri-
canes and earthquakes generally encompass a much larger
area of coverage and the timelines stretch out accordingly.
Under disaster response scenarios, the focus is not on a stan-
dard production-quality deliverable, but rather the one that
balances quality and accuracy against tight timelines. The
factors involved in formulating a disaster response, include:
•
Deciding upon the sensors to be used.
•
Defining the area to be captured and the resolution of
the data.
•
Dealing with weather and temporary airspace restric-
tions during acquisition.
