Getting to Know the Damage Assessment Solution

As the frequency and intensity of major disasters has increased, so has the impact to local communities. When a community is impacted by a disaster, timely and accurate information is necessary to help them recover quickly. A slow damage assessment process or inaccurate information can impede that recovery.

"The state, tribe or territory generally has 30 days from the start of the incident to determine whether or not federal assistance in the form of FEMA Individual Assistance, Public Assistance or other federal programs may be necessary."

Source: Federal Emergency Management Agency - Preliminary Damage Assessments

Local emergency managers need to provide current and accurate initial damage assessment information to state and federal agencies to gain assistance. In many cases, an emergency declaration is dependent on that information. Collecting initial damage assessments in a standardized format and sharing that information can help accelerate the recovery process. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) provides digital damage survey templates for both the Individual Assistance and Public Assistance programs.

The  Damage Assessment solution  delivers a set of capabilities that help you collect damage reports, assign initial damage assessments, monitor the impact of a disaster on the community, brief internal stakeholders, and share information with the public. It leverages the same information required by FEMA for both assistance programs to help local communities get the help they need in a standardized and efficient manor.

Damage Assessment is typically implemented by emergency management agencies that want to quickly understand the impact of a natural disaster, or catastrophic incident, and immediately assign resources to appropriate response and recovery activities.

During an emergency, it’s important for residents in the community to learn how the community has been impacted and how the recovery activities may affect them. The Damage Assessment Hub Site can be used by emergency management agencies to share damage assessment information with those that have been impacted.

Residents who have been evacuated before a disaster may be anxious to see if their home is still livable. Instead of calling the local emergency management office, they can view photos of the current conditions in the community. This information can save phone calls and reduce anxiety of those impacted.

Immediately after the emergency response and rescue operations are completed, initial damage assessments can be submitted to determine the impact of the incident.

The Damage Assessment solution allows residents of a community to submit public damage reports using a Survey 123 form available on an emergency management hub site which is hosted by the local jurisdiction.

When a public damage report is submitted, it will be received by the local emergency management agency who can verify the information during the initial damage assessment and provide the information directly to state and federal agencies.

Immediately after the disaster it is important to determine the severity of the impact to the community. In some situations, public safety personnel who are already in the field may be able to provide an initial assessment of damages. 

Windshield Damage Report is an ArcGIS QuickCapture mobile app that can be used by public safety or volunteers to rapidly capture damage reports while traveling down a road.

Windshield Damage Reports can be captured for the Individual Assistance program by selecting the appropriate damage level and then take a picture of the damaged property.

Windshield Damage Reports can also be captured for the Public Assistance program by selecting one of the appropriate categories and then take a picture.

The location coordinates will be stored with the photo to help determine where the damage occurred.

As damage reports are submitted, emergency management staff can begin to manage the reports. The public damage reports and windshield damage reports can be used as a starting point to conduct the initial damage assessments. The Damage Assessment Operations app can be used as a quality control step to review, edit, and assign damage reports that need to be validated.

Damage Assessment Operations can be used to manage public or windshield damage reports. Damage Reports are listed by address, date of the report and the type of report. Each damage report can be moved to the correct location and assigned to public safety staff to conduct the initial damage assessment. An assignment grid can also be used to assign multiple damage reports within a grid to public safety personnel or trained volunteers. New damage reports can be added to the map and assigned as needed.

After the damage reports have been assigned by the damage assessment coordinator, public safety mobile workers will need to conduct the damage assessments that have been assigned to them. This can also be the starting point for those organizations who choose not to use the Public Damage Reports or Windshield Damage Reports.

The Damage Assessment Hub site includes an Internal Destination page that can be used by emergency managers to provide damage assessment resources to public safety staff and volunteers. These resources include dashboards to view real-time damage assessments, surveys to conduct the damage assessments and QR codes for each incident to help staff get started quickly.

Three surveys are provided to conduct initial damage assessments:

• Individual Assistance Survey supports FEMA's Individual Assistance program
• Individual Assistance Express Survey supports FEMA's Individual Assistance program
• Public Assistance Survey supports FEMA's Public Assistance program

The Individual Assistance Survey can be used by public safety personnel to gather details of private property losses and direct assistance to disaster survivors. Each mobile worker who has been assigned to conduct an assessment will receive the assignment in the inbox of the survey they are using.

The Individual Assistance Express Survey complements the Individual Assistance Survey. It can be used to simultaneously capture multiple damage structures in neighborhoods, apartment complexes and mobile home parks.

The Individual Assistance Express Survey complements the Individual Assistance Survey. It can be used to simultaneously capture multiple damage structures in neighborhoods, apartment complexes and mobile home parks.

The structure of this survey is slightly different so that you can assess damages for buildings, streets, blocks or subdivision and indicate the number of properties affected at each damage level.

Each building can be assessed a different damage level to provide more accurate information to emergency managers. Because this survey allows you to capture damage assessments for multiple buildings, it can help accelerate the damage assessment process.

The Public Assistance Survey can be used by public safety personnel to gather details of public-owned properties such as schools, bridges, water treatment and other facilities.

The structure of this survey is designed to support information required in FEMA's Public Assistance program. Each assessment type has a different category. When you select the type of assessment, additional questions will be displayed that are relevant to the type of facility. Additional questions for the cost will be displayed when you select cost status.

In some cases, the Public Assistance assessments will be performed after the individual assistance assessments are completed.

When an incident occurs, local governments need to ensure Individual Assistance priorities and Public Assistance needs are effectively captured and communicated to state and federal authorities to help the community recover. Emergency managers can monitor the impact to the community as the damage assessments are conducted to determine if a state or national declaration threshold has been exceeded.

The impact on the community can be measured in the Individual Assistance Dashboard and Public Assistance Dashboard. Each dashboard contains selectors, indicators and damage assessment information to help inform decision makers on the impact to the community.

Local emergency managers need to be able to manage damage assessments for multiple disasters over time. This can be challenging when the recovery period of those disasters can be a year or more. The Damage Assessment solution provides administrative tools to help you prepare damage assessment for impending incidents and close out damage assessments from past incidents.

When you deploy Damage Assessment in your ArcGIS organization, you will get a collection of maps and apps that can be used by emergency management agencies to collect damage reports, assign initial damage assessments, monitor the impact of a disaster on the community, brief internal stakeholders, and share information with the public.

This solution will help your organization provide current and accurate initial damage assessment information to state and federal agencies to gain assistance. The information is collected efficiently, validated by local authorities and shared with partner agencies in a standardized format. This accelerated process will help your community recover sooner from major disasters.

ArcGIS Solutions for State and Local Government help government agencies improve operations and enhance services provided to the public. Visit the  ArcGIS Solutions website  for more information.