Using GIS to Assist in Recent Illinois Tornado – Related Emergency Response

Recently in Illinois several communities unfortunately experienced extensive tornado damage. And over the last week I’ve seen several GIS-related efforts set up to offer information that could be helpful to those working to recover and rebuild. Below are a few quick summaries of these efforts:

OpenStreetMap

According to their website, OpenStreetMap is “a free, editable map of the whole world. Unlike proprietary datasets like Google Map Maker, the OpenStreetMap license allows free access to the full map dataset.” So basically, this online map and the related data are available to anyone and can be edited by anyone. It’s been useful over the last few years in helping communities experiencing disasters. One of my favorite examples of how this has been implemented is the assistance that was offered after the Haiti earthquake a few years ago. If interested, you can check out a video showing the timelapse of the OpenStreetMap edits for the Haiti effort here: OpenStreetMap Project Haiti

Last weekend, one of the cities in Illinois that experienced the most damage was Washington, Ill. Soon after relief efforts began, I noticed Dave Smith, a GIS professional from the Washington, DC, area had started an effort to map all the structures in Washington, Ill., on OpenStreetMap. Over the last week a number of people assisted him in this effort. At this point a good portion of the buildings have been mapped with only a few more areas left to be done. I embedded a view of the Washington, Ill., area of the map below. As you move around and zoom in keep in mind before Dave started this effort, there were no structures mapped in this city. You can see how much was done in just one week by volunteers from all over the world. The benefit of this map is that now, anyone can freely use this map and the information created by only properly citing the credit as indicated on the OpenStreetMap site:

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