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Proposal |
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Chemical Hazard Procedures and Planning for Victoria County’s LEPC
Prepared by South Texas Emergency Planning |
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Contents
Introduction Summary……………………………………… 1 Purpose………………………………………... 1 Scope………………………………………….. 1
Literature Review 1-2
Proposal Data………………………………………….. 2 Methodology………………………………….. 3-4 Implications…………………………………… 4 Budget………………………………………… 5 Timeline……………………………………….. 6-7 Final Deliverables……………………………… 7
Conclusions 7
Participation 8
References
South Texas Emergency Planning |
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References
Bourdeau, P., and Green, G. 1989. Disaster Emergency Planning. In: Methods for Assessing and Reducing Injury from Chemical Accidents, H. Falk, P. Kulling, A. Levine and J.McQuaid. John Wiley & Sons, New York, pp 75-81.
Cova, T.J. 1999. GIS in Emergency Management. In: Geographical Information Systems: Principles, Techniques, Applications, and Management, P.A. Longley, M.F. Goodchild, D.J. Maguire, D.W. Rhind (eds.), John Wiley & Sons, New York, pp. 845-858.
Cova, T.J., and Church, R.L. 1997. Modeling Community Evacuation Vulnerability Using GIS. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 11(8): 763-784.
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Summary
Under federal regulations, namely Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA), it is required to establish a comprehensive emergency response system in all communities in the United States. The implementation of GIS would aid Victoria County’s Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) through the exchange of data to detect spatial relations between chemical hazard sites, the environment, transportation networks and the population of Victoria County to facilitate an efficient evacuation towards safety.
Purpose & Scope
The goal of the project is to identify chemical hazard sites, population densities, and environments that are susceptible in the event of a hazardous incident. It then utilizes these factors to identify navigable transportation networks to evacuate the population at risk to the most suitable reception area or out of the county if needed. The results will be coordinated in a clear manner to make it accessible for public use and understanding. The project answers relative questions in case of a hazardous incident: who needs to be evacuated (population densities) and where they need to retreat to for safety. As a supplement, the project will also analyze potential environments at risk, including water bodies and critical facilities.
The scope of the project is Victoria County, located in south east Texas, near the Gulf Coast. Victoria City, the major city of Victoria County, is the focus due to the population concentration as well as the concentration of chemical hazard sites.
Literature Review
Today many cities have used GIS to map out evacuation routes for planning to mitigate any sorts of disasters. To look at disasters, naturally occurring or artificial, from a spatial perspective is a key to citing patterns and its impacts on the environment and the human population. This project focuses on chemical hazards sites and its impacts in case of a disaster in order to produce navigable evacuation routes. The subject of this project contains many uncertain variables such as street closures and toxic spills on highways and therefore an evacuation route for such incidents cannot be prepared in advanced, hence the key goal is to establish evacuation routes due to likely events of occurrences. Models and algorithms have been produced to take in consideration of these uncertain variables in Cova and Church’s 1997 study, such as P|C; where P is the populations involved and C are all the considerable exits. This is an attempt to take in conditional variables; it is not an attempt to suggest an evacuation exit however (Cova and Church 1997). Comprehensive emergency management (CEM) is a widely used emergency management framework. CEM organizes the emergency process into four sectors: mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. Preparedness and response are the sectors in which this project is based on. It is “concerned with actions that are taken in advance of an emergency to develop operational capabilities and facilitate an effective response to an emergency” (Cova 1999, 846) and immediate necessary actions that are taken to proceed with recovery. In this phase, GIS integrates relevant information to formulate an emergency response plan. Relevant information such as topography, built environment, toxic inventory sites, population, and transportation networks are used. FEMA’s All-hazard Situation Assessment Program has created the largest project of this kind, it takes in consideration of most natural disasters, fires, and chemical releases. Emergency planning reduces the magnitude of severity and consequences of a chemical incident on the community and its surroundings. Planning for such an event requires multi- level planning, for example on- site planning and off- site planning. On- site planning is the extensive knowledge of chemicals sites and its attributes and effects. Information regarding this should be organized, easily accessible and open to the public. Off- site planning is the coordination of efforts between local authorities, the public, and the person storing chemicals to provide a plan of evacuation and mitigation to reduce as many risks as possible (Bourdeau and Green1989).
Data Requisites & Sources
The data required to complete this project will come from four sources: Victoria County GIS Department, LEPC (Local Emergency Planning Committee), the U.S. Census Bureau and CHEMGroup. STEP will also need to create data that was not available for use from the latter sources. All sources will supply data in shapefile form to be used in ESRI ArcGIS ver. 9.3.
The LEPC in conjunction with the Victoria County GIS Department will supply STEP with most of the data needed to complete this analysis. LEPC will supply STEP with data that details the county and city of Victoria as well as the hazard transportation routes throughout the county. · Victoria city limit · Victoria county boundary and county parcels · Victoria county hydrology · Street centerlines HAZMAT Routes
The Victoria County GIS Department will supply STEP with data that concerns the various locations required subjects of this analysis. First Responders – Police, Fire Departments, and Hospitals Police and Fire Department Precincts Populations at risk – schools, day cares, nursing homes, hospitals and business centers. Evacuation Centers - hospitals, parks, schools, and shopping mall.
CHEMGroup, also working with Victoria County LEPC, will be producing data that details the location of all the hazard sites throughout Victoria County. This data will also be coupled with TIER II reports to supplement the data with information that will show what chemicals are stored at these hazard sites and the associated hazard risk these sites pose to the surrounding area. STEP will use this information to determine if any hazard sites pose a threat to environmental or critical infrastructure features.
Population data will be important data to have for this analysis to ensure that all population concentrations are accounted for and included in this analysis. Currently, the best available data is the 2000 census from the U.S. Census Bureau.
STEP will need to collect and create some data that was not readily available for use. Using the property search function in the Victoria County appraisal district’s website, STEP can look up the name and addresses for the businesses in question and take this information through a series of technical steps to create data layers ready for use in analysis. STEP will create data layers for the following locations: · Nursing homes · Day cares · Mall Critical infrastructure
Methodology
Task 1 – Collect all necessary data together.
In order to understand where the population concentrations are in relation to nearby evacuation shelters and potential hazardous dangers, we need to bring all relevant data together using ArcGIS ver. 9.3. The first step in gathering all necessary data, STEP will need to create shapefiles for day cares, nursing homes, mall, and critical infrastructures. The street addresses for these locations will be gathered from the property search function on the Victoria County Appraisal District’s website. When all addresses are acquired, STEP will enter this information into an excel table. The excel table will be then converted into useable data layers by georeferencing the data using ArcCatalog and ArcMap. Using data provided by the Victoria County GIS department and LEPC, U.S. Census Bureau, and the data created by STEP, STEP will create a database that contains the following data as shapefiles: Population Concentrations – schools, day cares, nursing homes, hospitals and business centers. Evacuation shelters – hospitals, parks, schools, and shopping mall. First responders – police, fire, and hospitals First responder’s precincts – police and fire rescue county precincts. Hydrology- rivers, streams, lakes, floodplain Critical Infrastructure – Water and Electrical facilities Roadways and Railways Hazard Sites
Task 2 – Data Analysis
There are frequent changes in the particular chemicals being stored at any one facility, as well as a wide variety of chemicals carried via transportation routes throughout the county. This would cause only an estimate as to the total area that a hazard incident could affect. Instead, it is important to concentrate on identifying where the main population concentrations are located, what are its potential hazards, and how to get those affected out of harm’s way. With data from objective 1 together, STEP will then begin analysis to determine the following information in reference to the population concentrations mentioned: · The proximity of closest evacuation shelter. · The proximity of the closest highway out of the county. The proximity of the closest potential hazard sites, whether it’s a HAZMAT transportation route, hazard site, or railroad. With this information, STEP will be able to then create a table that includes each individual population concentration that details the closest evacuation shelter, the closest highway out of the county and its closest hazard risk(s).
Critical infrastructure and Water resource contamination are also an important risk to be considered when and if there is a hazardous incident. STEP will work in conjunction with CHEMGroup who will supply data on the hazardous sites and their respective zones of contamination. With this data, STEP can determine the maximum area of contamination around the parcel containing the hazard site by using buffer and intersect tools to show what areas of hydrology each individual hazard sites affect. The same process will be used to find any sources of infrastructure have a risk of damage.
Implications
STEP will create an end product that will be valuable information in the evacuation and containment efforts in the case of a chemically hazardous incident in Victoria County. The information created in this analysis will show the locations of population concentrations, evacuation shelters, first responders, evacuation routes out of the county, and hazard sites. Furthermore, STEP will create a supplemental table that details the proximity of the closest evacuation shelter, evacuation route, and hazard site to each individual population concentration. The analysis of hazard site maximum contamination zones will serve as a general guideline for identifying and containing contaminated hydrological features and critical infrastructure potentially affected by an incident.
Budget, pg. 5
Timeline
Data Collection: Weeks 1 and 2
South Texas Emergency Planning will begin the above tasks once the project proposal has been accepted. Data collection will be high on the priority list and will take several weeks to gather all of the necessary information for analysis. Once the data is collected and deemed usable by the project manager the team will begin processing and formatting the data.
Data Processing and Analysis: Weeks 3-7
By the end of October the data collection portion of the project will be completed and processing and analysis will begin. The data analysis portion is scheduled to take between two and three weeks. The team will work on processing the data and alternate other job duties as the data becomes readily available for analysis. Other duties include research, gathering metadata and completing progress reports.
Data Interpretation: Weeks 7-8 After we have processed and analyzed our information we will interpret our outcomes through maps, graphs and tables. These documents will all be part of the final deliverables stage, which should be completed within a couple of weeks.
Web Design: Weeks 8-9
Once analysis is in its final stages the web design portion will begin. The website construction stage will be integrated with the final deliverables stage and is determined to take several weeks. Certain team members will continue to analyze the data while others will be constructing the company website and gathering all documents for the final deliverables.
Final Deliverables: Weeks 9-10
A detailed report of the methodology used for the project will be provided to the client. The report should provide our client with sufficient insight as to methods and implementation of techniques used by STEP. A decision then can be made whether or not the project has been executed proficiently meeting the clients desired requests. At this time the client will be able to offer feedback and the possibility of future enhancements to the final outcome of the project.
Final Deliverables
STEP will create the following materials out of the project for the LEPC of Victoria County: · Detailed Final Report (2 copies) · Professional Poster for display in the Texas State Geography Department · A group interactive- website using the Manifold application · Static maps and supplemental data tables. · CD (2 copies) o All Data o Metadata o Proposal, Progress and Final Reports o Digital image of poster o All PowerPoint presentations A Readme file
Conclusions
STEP will create a complete and accurate analysis for the LEPC of Victoria County. STEP intends to create information that will aid in the procedures following a hazardous incident to help in identifying population concentrations at risk, possible evacuation routes and shelters to get those affected to safety. STEP’s information will aid in contamination control by identifying waterways at risk of contamination. STEP’s analysis will also identify any risk posed to the critical infrastructure serving Victoria County. The analysis and information created by STEP, in combination with the LEPC’s procedures for emergencies, the county of Victoria will be better prepared to effectively manage a hazardous incident.
Participation
Christian Barsi: Timetable and graphic Jordon Hutto: Budget Justin McCreight: Data, Methodology, Implications, Final Deliverables, Conclusion Kristy Nguyen: Summary, Purpose, Scope, Literature Review, References
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