Pacific Disaster Center

PDC helps mentor Ka Ipu Kukui Fellows in planning for a resilient Maui

chnadmin — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 23:50:20 +0000

Sixteen fellows of the 2024 Ka Ipu Kukui cohort recently came together to address the challenge of building resilience for Maui County. Presented by Maui Economic Development Board (MEDB), the annual Project Weekend was renamed Project Maui Nui to reflect its focus and purpose, as well as being responsive to the current needs of the county.

The 3-day workshop is specifically designed for the Fellows of Ka Ipu Kukui, a year-long program designed for community-identified, emerging leaders and conceived to address planning for Maui Nui’s future.

Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) partnered with MEDB to provide the cohort with background information to support them on the challenge. Tim Manning, Senior Advisor with PDC, presented a keynote on Resilient Communities. Tim has worked with White House administration for both Obama, and then during the Biden administration working on the COVID response. He gave a big picture presentation on resilience and data points to consider.

Dr. Erin Hughey, Director of Global Operations for PDC, spoke on the work they do in disaster management, including with the Maui wildfires; the PDC tools and resources available to help with risk mitigation; and the impacts of natural hazards on Hawaii. Joseph Green, PDC’s Director of Applied Science followed up with a presentation on ‘What is Resilience and How do we Measure it.’

PDC then led the cohort through a table-top exercise to help the fellows start to think from a stakeholder’s point of view on how to respond to a disaster and plan for the future.

Hui hoku Initiative were announced the winners of Project Maui Nui 2024. From left: Olena Alec, Jack Dowling, Becky Lind, and Matthew Lugo.

“We were very grateful to partner with Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) who went above and beyond as the subject-matter experts for the workshop. The presentations and table-top exercise helped to kick off the actual challenge with teams working on their solutions to build resilience. The PDC team acted as coaches on Day 2 to answer questions and provide guidance on their projects.”

— Annette Lynch, MEDB’s Director of Communications

According to Suharyanto, ASEAN should consider technological innovation in dealing with disaster threats, but the implementation should be in line with the local wisdom and cultures of each member country.

Teams presented their projects on the afternoon of Day 3 with a 10-minute Pitch to a panel of three judges — Henry “Hanale” Lindo, Assistant Chief, Maui Fire Department; Saumalu Mata’afa, Deputy Director, Department of Housing & Human Concerns; and Steven M. Sigler, PhD, Disaster Services NDPBA Specialist, Pacific Disaster Center.

Solutions included developing community hubs to facilitate response and communication; the use of drones for search and rescue and other emergency services; developing a food forest to enhance local sustainability; and deploying a digital bus concept to provide Wi-Fi connectivity to remote areas and during disasters.

Matthew Lugo of Privateer commented on his experience, “My overall experience with Project Maui Nui was excellent! It was great working with a diverse team with a wide skill set trying to tackle how to improve disaster resiliency on Maui. We had great advice and guidance from the advisors and team at PDC, and it was astounding how many great ideas we created and heard from the other teams.”

Lugo’s team, Hui Hoku Initiative, was announced as this year’s winner for their drone service solution. “I feel our team’s project solution truly can help Maui. It’s fairly simple — encourage more parties involved in disaster relief to use this available and cheap technology of drones in more innovative and frequent ways. Sometimes the best innovation is realizing that the capability is already out there and simply shifting protocol to use it.”

The Ka Ipu Kukui Fellows will continue to meet in monthly Halawai to further develop a holistic appreciation and understanding of Maui Nui’s unique challenges. As their May graduation approaches, recruitment for the 2025 Cohort will commence in late spring. Visit kaipukukuifellows.org to learn more.

Maui Economic Development Board (MEDB) is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation established in 1982 with a mission to diversify Maui County’s economy, building pathways to innovation, jobs and opportunity for our residents. Through partnerships with the public and private sector, MEDB undertakes projects that assists growth industries with navigating and thriving in our county, educates and trains residents for new careers, and engages our community in forums that determine future economic directions.

The Ka Ipu Kukui cohort of 2024.

“Addressing the challenge of building resiliency in such a short time frame was both challenging and rewarding. Being able to come up with a feasible solution in two days gave a sense of achievement and allowed me to build deeper relationships with the members of the group. I also appreciated that this gave us a chance to have informed, engaging, and insightful discussions about a critical issue affecting Maui and feasible solutions.”

—Brialyn Onadera, Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope staff

About PDC Winner of the 2022 UN Sasakawa Award for Disaster Risk Reduction, the University of Hawai’i’s Pacific Disaster Center is a global leader in the application of life-saving disaster management science, early warning technology, and advanced analytics. Our risk intelligence products provide decision-makers with the essential insights and information needed to act early to protect communities from hazards and to build more sustainable, resilient communities for a safer world. The Center’s DisasterAWARE technology is used by tens of thousands of disaster management practitioners around the globe. DisasterAWARE provides global, multi-hazard early warning and includes advanced situational awareness tools, the highest resolution all-hazards impact modeling, advanced analytics, and augmented information through artificial intelligence.

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Plugins List

luigibella — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 22:59:45 +0000

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PDC Annual Report (2022-2023)

luigibella — Mon, 18 Dec 2023 19:22:09 +0000

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Singapore strengthens humanitarian assistance and disaster relief partnership with PDC

chnadmin — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 20:23:00 +0000

Singapore’s Changi Regional Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) Coordination Centre (RHCC) and Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) have just announced a renewed agreement of their longtime cooperation on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief initiatives. The announcement took place during PDC’s participation with Changi RHCC in a recent multinational humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercise known as Exercise Coordinated Response (Ex COORES) 2023. Ex COORES was held in Singapore between October 30 and November 2, 2023, with the active participation of 180 personnel from 26 militaries and 25 civilian organizations. The four-day event was co-organized by Changi RHCC, the Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance (CFE-DM), and the Disaster Management Committee, Ministry of National Defence, Lao PDR. PDC served as an observer to the overall exercise, representing the civil sector, and providing data from its DisasterAWARE platform into Changi RHCC’s OPERA application which supported Ex COORES 23. The exercise scenario involved responding to a simulated typhoon resulting in severe secondary flooding and landslide impacts. Both primary and secondary hazard impacts required extensive response coordination for search and rescue and humanitarian assistance operations. During the exercise, numerous requests for assistance were “injected” into the response scenario to trigger coordination of decision-making between various host governments, the Multinational Coordination Center, and civilian agency representatives. Cooperation between PDC and Changi RHCC during Ex COORES was followed by a renewed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that extends from their 2018 MOU on regional early warning and disaster response.

PDC’s web-based platform, DisasterAWARE Pro, shows LHASA landslide hazard probabilities for Myanmar in Sept. 2023. Red areas indicate the highest risk for landslide occurrence within the past three hours, while orange and yellow indicate lesser risk. Credits: Pacific Disaster Center

“We are pleased to announce the renewal of our partnership with PDC following years of successful collaboration on many important initiatives, including integration of PDC DisasterAWARE data into our OPERA v2.0 application as well as this week’s Ex COORES 23 multinational exercise.

Together, we remain committed to building regional and partner capacity to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters in one of the highest risk and most hazard-prone regions of the world.”
—Director Changi RHCC, Colonel Fredie Tan

Diverse stakeholders from multiple countries participate in Ex COORES 2023 held in Singapore from October 30 and November 2, 2023.

According to Changi RHCC Director Colonel Tan, the organization has been partnering with PDC over the last five years on advanced early warning, risk understanding, and capacity development with partners. “Through our renewed agreement we seek to build networks and linkages with stakeholders to enhance information sharing as well as build capacity for disaster relief. We also intend to continue joint training and exercises and increase the interoperability of multi-hazard early warning.” “Our agreement with Changi RHCC is a regional force multiplier in building capacity because it allows us to leverage each other’s complementary resources and networks,” said Chris Chiesa, Deputy Executive Director of the Pacific Disaster Center. Chiesa explained that during the next phase of PDC’s partnership with Changi RHCC, areas of focus will be on strengthening disaster risk reduction and response through advancements in early warning, risk assessments, technology innovations, disaster operations, and capacity building. Changi RHCC was established in 2014 to establish operational ties with HADR agencies in the region and beyond, allowing for greater collaboration and enhanced disaster planning and response. A technical exchange is planned for the first quarter of 2024 to help shape the next version of Changi RHCC’s OPERA application and achieve a higher level of interoperability between it and PDC’s DisasterAWARE platform. READ MORE Learn more about Changi RHCC and PDC’s recent engagement and partnership.

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NASA, Pacific Disaster Center release new landslide hazard alerting capability

chnadmin — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 19:46:39 +0000

Communities worldwide now have access to a powerful tool to increase their awareness of landslide hazards, thanks to NASA and the Pacific Disaster Center

After years of development and testing, NASA’s Landslide Hazard Assessment for Situational Awareness model (LHASA) has been integrated into the Pacific Disaster Center’s (PDC) multi-hazard monitoring, alerting, and decision-support platform, DisasterAWARE. LHASA allows researchers to map rainfall-triggered landslide hazards, giving DisasterAWARE users around the world a robust tool for identifying, tracking, and responding to these threats. The aim is to equip communities with timely and critical risk awareness that bolsters disaster resilience and safeguards lives and livelihoods.

“Some local authorities develop their own systems to monitor landslide risk, but there isn’t a global model that works in the same way. That’s what defines LHASA: it works all the time and it covers most regions of the world.

Thanks to our collaboration with the Pacific Disaster Center, this powerful landslide technology is now even more accessible for the communities that need it most.”
—Robert Emberson, NASA Disasters associate program manager and a key member of the NASA landslides team

Landslides cause thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in damage every year. Developing countries often bear disproportionate losses due to lack of access to hazard early warning systems and other resources for effective risk reduction and recovery. Reports from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction emphasize that early warning systems and early action are among the most effective ways to decrease disaster-related deaths and losses.

A humanitarian worker from USAID observes the impacts of a landslide. USAID deployed an elite Disaster Assistance Response Team on Nov. 17, 2020, to lead the U.S. response to Hurricanes Eta and Iota. Credits: USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance

Image: In 2021, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, triggering a series of landslides across the country. Landslides can destroy infrastructure and impede the movement of people and life-saving aid. Credits: United Nations World Food Programme

The distribution of reported fatalities from 10,804 rainfall-triggered landslides in NASA’s Global Landslide Catalog (GLC) from 2007 to 2017. White dots represent incidents with zero reported fatalities and dots in the color scale from pink to red represent incidents in the range of 1-5000 fatalities. The NASA landslides team, based primarily out of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, develops the Global Landslide Catalog and LHASA with support from NASA’s Disasters program. Credits: NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio

LHASA uses a machine learning model that combines data on ground slope, soil moisture, snow, geological conditions, distance to faults, and the latest near real-time precipitation data from NASA’s IMERG product (part of the Global Precipitation Measurement mission). The model has been trained on a database of historical landslides and the conditions surrounding them, allowing it to recognize patterns that indicate a landslide is likely. The result is a landslide “nowcast”—a map showing the potential of rainfall-triggered landslides occurring for any given region within the past day. This map of hazard likelihood can help agencies and officials rapidly assess areas where the current landslide risk is high. It can also give disaster response teams critical information on where a landslide may have occurred so they can investigate and deploy life-saving resources. Partnering to Protect the Vulnerable Generating landslide nowcasts is merely the first step. To be truly effective, vulnerable communities must receive the data in a way that is accessible and easy to integrate into existing disaster management plans. That’s where the Pacific Disaster Center comes in. PDC is an applied research center managed by the University of Hawaii, and it shares NASA’s goal to reduce global disaster risk through innovative uses of science and technology. Its flagship DisasterAWARE software provides early warnings and risk assessment tools for 18 types of natural hazards and supports decision-making by a wide range of disaster management agencies, local governments, and humanitarian organizations. Prominent users include the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA), and the World Food Programme (WFP).

“The close pairing of our organizations and use of PDC’s DisasterAWARE platform for early warning has been a special recipe for success in getting life-saving information into the hands of decision-makers and communities around the world.”
—PDC Deputy Executive Director aChris Chiesa, PDC deputy executive director

The collaboration with PDC brings NASA’s landslide tool to tens of thousands of existing DisasterAWARE users, dramatically increasing LHASA’s reach and effectiveness. Chiesa notes that teams in El Salvador, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic have already begun using these new capabilities to assess landslide hazards during the 2023 rainy season. PDC’s software ingests and interprets LHASA model data and generates maps of landslide risk severity. It then uses the data to generate landslide hazard alerts for a chosen region that the DisasterAWARE mobile app pushes to users. These alerts give communities critical information on potential hazards, enabling them to take protective measures. DisasterAWARE also creates comprehensive regional risk reports that estimate the number of people and infrastructure exposed to a disaster—focusing specifically on things like bridges, roads, and hospitals that could complicate relief efforts when damaged. This information is critical for allowing decision-makers to effectively deploy resources to the areas that need them most.

This screenshot from PDC’s DisasterAWARE Pro software shows LHASA landslide hazard probabilities for Myanmar in Sept. 2023. Red areas indicate the highest risk for landslide occurrence within the past three hours, while orange and yellow indicate lesser risk. Credits: Pacific Disaster Center

This effort between NASA and the PDC builds upon a history of fruitful cooperation between the organizations. In 2022, they deployed a NASA global flood modeling tool to enhance DisasterAWARE’s flood early-warning capabilities. They have also shared data and expertise during multiple disasters, including Hurricane Iota in 2020, the 2021 earthquake in Haiti, and the devastating August 2023 wildfires in Maui, PDC’s base of operations. “The LHASA model is all open-source and leverages publicly available data from NASA and partners,” says Dalia Kirschbaum, lead of the NASA landslides team and director of Earth Sciences at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Kirschbaum and her team were recently awarded the prestigious NASA Software of the Year award for their work developing LHASA. “This enables other researchers and disaster response communities to adapt the framework to regional or local applications and further awareness at scales relevant to their decision-making needs.” Landslide hazard alerting and impact reporting is also provided to the business community through DisasterAWARE Enterprise provided by DisasterIQ. DisasterIQ specializes in helping small businesses and large enterprises mitigate the impacts of hazards by protecting business continuity and increasing risk intelligence through its advanced suite of tools. About PDC Winner of the 2022 UN Sasakawa Award for Disaster Risk Reduction, the University of Hawai’i’s Pacific Disaster Center is a global leader in the application of life-saving disaster management science, early warning technology, and advanced analytics. Our risk intelligence products provide decision-makers with the essential insights and information needed to act early to protect communities from hazards and to build more sustainable, resilient communities for a safer world. The Center’s DisasterAWARE technology is used by tens of thousands of disaster management practitioners around the globe. DisasterAWARE provides global, multi-hazard early warning for 19 types of natural hazards. DisasterAWARE offers advanced situational awareness tools for disaster management and humanitarian assistance practitioners including the highest resolution all-hazards impact modeling, advanced analytics, and augmented information through artificial intelligence.

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PDC showcases NASA global flood and landslide hazards partnerships at TIEMS 2023

chnadmin — Wed, 20 Sep 2023 00:34:40 +0000

Port Alfred, South Africa—At the invitation of The International Emergency Management Society (TIEMS), PDC Deputy Executive Director Chris Chiesa presented results of the PDC-NASA collaboration at TIEMS 2023, the 30th annual meeting of the organization. Hosted by Rhodes University and Stenden South Africa College from September 12-14, the annual meeting included experts from 30 countries, with more than 50 participants attending in-person and virtually. During his session “Early Warning and Hydrometeorological Disasters,” Chris Chiesa provided an overview of PDC and an interactive demonstration of DisasterAWARE for active floods in South Africa before showcasing the results of the PDC-NASA collaboration over the past three years, including the recent incorporations of the MoM model to extend PDC hazard coverage for floods and the LHASA 2 model for landslide hazards, which were released in the fall of 2023. A preview of the Center’s development of DisasterAWARE “Checklists”—starting with one for flood hazards to assist disaster management offices and emergency management operations centers to quickly and effectively use DisasterAWARE Pro to monitor, provide warning and respond to flooding events—was also included in Chiesa’s presentation. The Checklists will be extended to wildfire and landslide hazards in the coming months. “We were excited to share the fruits of our collaboration with NASA and its partners with such a diverse international audience of disaster management professionals and students. It generated significant interest in DisasterAWARE, the expanded hazard coverage for floods and landslides, and for Checklists.,” said Chiesa during the meeting. Dr. Shanna N. McClain, Disasters Program Manager for NASA’s Earth Science Applied Sciences Program stated, “We are happy to see PDC so widely promote our collaboration and to learn that it was so well received by international disaster managers. We look forward to expanded collaboration and continued partnership with PDC.”

READ MORE TIEMS is a global forum for experts specializing in education, training and certification in emergency and disaster management. The organization provides a platform for the exchange of information on the use of innovative methods and technologies to improve on the ability to avoid, mitigate, respond to, and recover from natural and technological disasters. For further information on the annual conference as well as the work being done to develop and bring the benefits of modern emergency management tools, techniques, and good practices to the international community, visit TIEMS.

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PDC participates in ARDEX, ASEAN’s multinational disaster simulation exercise

chnadmin — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 20:00:51 +0000

Yogyakarta, Indonesia—The University of Hawaii’s Pacific Disaster Center joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) during a full-scale, multinational exercise from August 1-4. The exercise, held every other year, is a full-scale simulation to test, practice, review effectiveness and evaluate regional emergency response mechanisms. This year’s exercise which was held in the Yogyakarta province of Indonesia and included a tabletop exercise (TTX) session, followed by a full-scale simulation of a major earthquake—a common occurrence in the region. The exercise involved over 500 people, including about 380 active participants from the host’s national and local Disaster Management Organizations, known as BNPB and BPBD, respectively, and representatives from other ASEAN countries, the ASEAN Secretariat, and AHA Centre. About 180 international guests and Indonesia partners in disaster mitigation including representatives from the UN, Australia, the U.S., Japan, and Switzerland also attended.

Lieutenant General Suharyanto, Head of Indonesia’s national disaster management agency BNPB.

“We hope ASEAN countries can share and transfer knowledge to each other regarding disaster risk mitigation. And through ARDEX, we also seek ways to mitigate and reduce disaster risks by embracing multiple stakeholders in the related fields.”

—Lieutenant General Suharyanto, Head of Indonesia’s national disaster management agency BNPB

“We were honored to be invited once more by our longtime friends and partners from ASEAN to attend ARDEX. This year’s exercise clearly demonstrated how far ASEAN’s regional response mechanisms have come and improved over the last 19 years, since the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. The region can now proudly serve as a model for others, and sharing their expertise and knowledge is pivotal to our joint mission of saving lives and building national and regional resilience.”
—Ray Shirkhodai, PDC’s Executive Director

PDC started collaborating with the ASEAN Committee on Disaster Management, representing all 10 nations, in April 2004, months before the catastrophic Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. Since then, it has helped with disaster risk reduction initiatives in the region, including early engagements for ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER) strategic work plans, and beyond. According to Shirkhodai, early on, the Center helped with assessing tools and technology gaps in the region, developing a skills and technology roadmap, and collaborating on means to help operationalize the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre). Years later, these collaborations culminated in the deployment of the AHA Center’s first and only regional early warning capability powered by PDC’s DisasterAWARE platform. That system, the Disaster Monitoring and Response System (DMRS), is still in full operational use today at the AHA Centre based in Jakarta, Indonesia.

ARDEX 2023 was based on tsunami scenario and involved a full-scale disaster response exercise.

Yogyakarta was chosen as the site to host ARDEX this year as a commemoration of the 17th anniversary of the 2006 earthquake in Bantul that killed over 5,700 people and injured tens of thousands of others.

About PDC

Winner of the 2022 UN Sasakawa Award for Disaster Risk Reduction, the University of Hawai’i’s Pacific Disaster Center is a global leader in the application of life-saving disaster management science, early warning technology, and advanced analytics. Our risk intelligence products provide decision-makers with the essential insights and information needed to act early to protect communities from hazards and to build more sustainable, resilient communities for a safer world. The Center’s DisasterAWARE technology is used by tens of thousands of disaster management practitioners around the globe. DisasterAWARE provides global, multi-hazard early warning and includes advanced situational awareness tools, the highest resolution all-hazards impact modeling, advanced analytics, and augmented information through artificial intelligence.

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Colombia kicks-off new disaster risk reduction effort as El Niño takes hold

chnadmin — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 01:13:43 +0000

Bogotá, Colombia — Colombia’s national disaster management organization, Unidad Nacional para la Gestión del Riesgo de Desastres (UNGRD), has just announced a new forward-leaning disaster risk reduction (DRR) initiative to help deal with the nation’s significant exposure to climate-induced hazards. In the grips of El Niño, millions in Colombia face significant water shortages and a reduction in crop production, while others are enduring life-threatening flooding and property losses elsewhere in the country. On August 9, 2023, UNGRD announced a new partnership with the University of Hawai’i’s Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) to collaborate on a National Disaster Preparedness Baseline Assessment which will help Colombia develop new knowledge about risk and vulnerabilities and analyze disaster management capacity to inform mitigation strategies and resilience-building initiatives.

“This partnership offers the national government the opportunity to analyze and gather data and information necessary to anticipate risks effectively and guide the formulation of policies and investments to prevent losses and damages within the national territory.”
—UNGRD

“As with most disasters, the most vulnerable populations such as women heads of households, and ethnic peoples suffer the greatest losses and economic impacts. These losses also include damage to domestic, farm, and wildlife animals. These initiatives support our ongoing commitment to the United Nations Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, climate change adaptation, and the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals that aim to ensure a better quality of life for all. Through this assessment, we are facilitating early action and more effective decisions that result in a safer and more resilient Colombia,” UNGRD said. The National Disaster Preparedness Baseline Assessment is an internationally recognized program developed by PDC that will use a scientific process to help improve the availability and reliability of risk data and early warning information in order to safeguard Suriname now and into the future.

“The National Disaster Preparedness Baseline Assessment is currently the only program designed to operationalize the Sendai Framework goals. It was recently awarded first-place recognition by the United Nations for its unique application of advanced technologies and actionable information.”

—PDC’s Chief of Party and NDPBA Country Lead, Scott Kuykendall

Drawing upon local knowledge about these hazards, the assessment will involve national and subnational governmental stakeholders, nongovernmental organizations, and scientific, academic, and private sector groups that play an important role in disaster and climate resilience. PDC has also recruited one of its newest partners and long-time partner of Colombia, iMMAP Inc., to assist with data development and knowledge sharing. iMMAP Inc. has been working in Colombia since 2009 on multiple projects supporting the humanitarian assistance community including IOM, OCHA, UNDP, and the Resident Coordinator’s Office. Results of the assessment and multi-stakeholder collaboration are expected to be released within approximately 12 months following the August 9 kick-off workshop and exchange. About PDC Winner of the 2022 UN Sasakawa Award for Disaster Risk Reduction, the University of Hawai’i’s Pacific Disaster Center is a global leader in the application of life-saving disaster management science, early warning technology, and advanced analytics. For more than 28 years, the Center’s risk intelligence products have enabled decision-makers with the essential insights and information needed to act early to protect communities from hazards and save lives. PDC’s award-winning National Disaster Preparedness Baseline Assessment is helping nations around the world to operationalize the goals of the UN Sendai Framework, Sustainable Development Goals, and Paris Agreement.

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Data collection and mapping efforts support the County of Maui’s wildfire response, search and recovery

luigibella — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 21:42:39 +0000

Maui, HI (Aug 17-20) — Following a week of ongoing response and relief efforts, and nearly a thousand of Maui’s loved ones reported still missing, the unrelenting work to identify remains from the devastating Lahaina wildfire and to restore critical services continued. Water tankers made their way to Maui’s west side where thousands of residents remained cut off from running water. Community-based relief continued along with the distribution of goods which became more closely coordinated between NGOs, community leaders, and officials. Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) continued to aid the recovery effort by processing and sharing data updates, and developing new analytics based upon ground-verified information. All new informational maps and data were provided to support whole-of-government coordination as well as community relief situational awareness through PDC’s DisasterAWARE platform. DisasterAWARE is used by governments and regional and non-governmental humanitarians worldwide for emergency and disaster management planning, coordination, and response in large disasters. The U.S. Department of Defense also uses the platform as the only approved unclassified source of global disaster information, for humanitarian aid, and disaster management decision making.

About PDC Winner of the 2022 United Nations Sasakawa Award for Disaster Risk Reduction, the University of Hawai’i’s Pacific Disaster Center (PDC) is a global leader in the application of life-saving disaster management science, early warning technology, and advanced analytics. Our risk intelligence products provide decision-makers with the essential insights and information needed to act early to protect communities from hazards.PDC works to support the most demanding needs of nonprofits and government organizations worldwide in a collective mission to create a safer, more disaster-resilient world.

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Officials and community responders at ground zero need updated maps and data to aid Maui wildfire search, recovery, and relief efforts

luigibella — Mon, 14 Aug 2023 21:19:44 +0000

Maui, HI (Aug 13-16) — Days after the catastrophic Maui wildfire event unfolded, with numerous teams of officials and community responders deployed to the impacted areas, maps and updated data remained critical to daily operations. A key focus of Maui Emergency Operations Center interagency coordination is to sustain lives, ensure the safety of survivors and responders, perform culturally sensitive and detailed search and recovery efforts, and secure transitional and temporary housing for displaced residents. As firefighting activities continued in the upcountry areas of Kula and Olinda, utility companies and public agencies worked to restore critical services and infrastructure. To support a broad operational understanding of the numerous activities underway and an understanding of the latest public safety protocols, a Daily Operational Picture was developed by the joint agencies at the Emergency Operation Center (EOC). Leveraging Pacific Disaster Center (PDC)’s existing data, mapping expertise, and DisasterAWARE platform, the center took on the support role to provide expertise and tools needed for the emerging need. The platform, along with massive data processing efforts were launched to enable daily briefings at the EOC. The Daily Operational Picture is being used to facilitate daily knowledge-sharing and to provide insight into the rapidly changing situation on the ground. DisasterAWARE continues to provide a common foundation of reliable information sharing and visualization upon which new decisions and actions can be made. A public version of the Daily Common Operational Picture was also developed for public awareness: Mapping of new information remained a high priority. Working in Collaboration with the County of Maui Enterprise GIS, Department of Management, PDC continued to integrate and map new information in its DisasterAWARE situational awareness, risk intelligence, and early warning platform. DisasterAWARE remained the common operational picture for all responders, making critical data available online and remotely to all stakeholders.

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