Background

The Maryland Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) and the Towson University Center for GIS (CGIS) began working together to roll out a suite of interoperable GIS technology tools to state and local government emergency managers prior to the 2003 hurricane season. When Hurricane Isabel made landfall in Maryland in September 2003, CGIS voluntarily deployed GIS staff to MEMA’s State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) to apply GIS interactive mapping capabilities in a response capacity for the duration of the event.

Concurrently, CGIS was using GIS to conduct a risk and vulnerability assessment for MEMA from an all-hazards approach. CGIS built on the combined experiences and further explored the role GIS can play in emergency and disaster preparedness and response.

Interoperative tools that improve state and local government agencies’ ability to visualize and analyze incidents in a map-based context and communicate more directly with emergency managers and response personnel include the Emergency Management Mapping Application (EMMA©) developed by CGIS, Crisis Information Management System (CIMS) software, and the Homeland Security Information Network (HSIN).

From 2003 through 2006, the Governor's Office of Homeland Security, MEMA, Maryland’s Department of Transportation, Towson University, and MSGIC combined resources to firmly establish GIS as an indispensible technology tool for disaster management.