Grant Project Summary:
Chatham County Emergency Management Agency
Coastal Planning, Response, and Recovery from Tropical Hazards
April 2005 to October 2006
Project Summary
The Chatham (County) Emergency Management Agency (CEMA)
and the NOAA Coastal Services Center entered a cooperative agreement to develop four geographic information system (GIS) applications to enhance overall
planning, response, and recovery from hurricane hazards, building on previous tools such as HURREVAC. HURREVAC, developed by the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and the National Weather Service, is a restricted-use computer program used by federal, state, and local
government emergency managers since 1988 to track hurricanes to assist in decision making for their communities.
CEMA assessed four GIS applications: 1) a GIS application that includes a comprehensive Hurricane Study Technical Data Display and an interface that allows
coastal managers to update key data layers, such as roadway networks, mobile home density, and refuges of last resort; 2) a community-specific HURREVAC program
tailored to Chatham County to assist in local hurricane preparedness decision making; 3) a tool that extracts meteorological data from HURREVAC to map flood
forecast areas based on storm surge, storm characteristics, and tidal conditions; and 4) a GIS recovery tool to display and analyze components of the recovery
process (e.g., traffic control points, staging centers, road clearing priorities) and to estimate storm damages (e.g., physical and economic). Each of these four
tools, when fully developed through additional resources, will have accompanying tutorials to train users. Project partners included the Georgia Emergency
Management Agency (GEMA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
NOAA Coastal Services Center's Role
The NOAA Coastal Services Center assisted with the development of the comprehensive Hurricane Study Technical Data Display, the combined storm surge and
rainfall flood forecast mapping application, the recovery planning tool, and the training modules.
Grantee Overview
The Chatham Emergency Management Agency is a local division of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA). GEMA is a part of the Office of the Governor and operates under the authority of the Georgia
Emergency Management Act of 1981. The mission of CEMA is to protect lives and property from the threat of all types of major emergencies and disasters, both natural and man-made. To accomplish this, CEMA employs six people who provide community-wide leadership, support, and coordination in the areas of mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery.
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