North River Geographic Systems Inc

Geospatial Problem Solving

usvi

Last Year’s Hurricane Season in the USVI

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So I’ll talk about this finally. I usually don’t talk about “work” unless it’s in generalities about software and processes. I probably should talk about work more.

I’ve never been in a hurricane. I think so far I’ve been in about a handful of earthquakes, stood on one volcano, and I think I’ve seen one tornado. Not that I’m looking to be in a natural disaster – I just don’t have a frame of reference for what happens during a hurricane or a tornado.

If you flash back to early September 2017 the Caribbean was gearing up for a hurricane and. Turns out two hit close together. I had the chance to work in the US Virgin Islands on an addressing project with AppGeo and Spatial Focus several years ago. It’s been a “wait and see” type of deal. We did a little and watch as red tape and things slow it down. I called a few friends down there before the hurricanes hit and wished them well. Overall – there wasn’t a ton of fear but a lot of concern. I was concerned because the 911 system isn’t great as the addressing isn’t wonderful in the USVI.

My memory is getting fuzzy – but it seems like both hurricanes hit and it was a while before anyone could call/email me. Maybe it was late September or October before the phone rang. They needed help to figure out where the tarps needed to go.  FEMA/USACE was headed down to bring tarps and supplies – maybe they were already there. A sneaker net of GIS data had cranked itself up on the island as thumb drives were passed around. I started trying to figure out “what made sense with the base data I had available”. I started digging into what USACE and What FEMA would do if your roof was damaged. More or less if you had 50% of the structure of the roof left they could put a tarp on it. I came up with a plan and contacted AppGeo and they tossed a person my way.

Structures were categorized:

  • 1 – 25% Roof Damage
  • 26 to 50% Roof Damage
  • 51 to 75% Roof Damage
  • 76 to 100% Roof Damage
  • Structure Destroyed
  • No Damage
  • No Imagery

NOAA flew imagery of the area. The imagery was a bit rough around the edges but it worked. Actually – let me back up – for what it was it was awesome. Granted it didn’t lend itself to any sort of automatic classification as there was a lot of building lean and some missing imagery. It worked though. That was a great free resource by NOAA.

Hey that’s a lot of points. Yes – 48380 points covering three islands. Granted I didn’t get every house as I had nothing much to start out with except OSM and some USDA NAIP imagery. I would guess I’m within 10% of an accurate building count. Some people have offices/live in shipping containers down there. WHICH – when I was there made me go “awesome” but when looking at the imagery at a shipping container blowing a half mile across a field – not so awesome.

It did give me flash backs to my old remote sensing days with the government. Although this was less refined – it was a game in the afternoons to see how many points I could collect in an hour. Some neighborhoods were easy. Some not so much as there wasn’t much left. The other nice thing that happened was sometime around December I switched over to QGIS 3.0 and started seeing what I could/couldn’t do with this almost released software. Several bug reports were filed so more good came out of this.

The data started making it’s way out to one agency after another. My big fear then was “what if someone uses this beyond ‘roofs'”. I wasn’t doing a full blow damage assessment because I was seeing some evidence that maybe the roof survived but the bottom floors didn’t. Plus I wasn’t on location.

It took me a bit longer to finish than I wanted – Volunteer projects tend to be the last thing I work on most days.

I did start pulling numbers out of some of the work – this is for St John Island:

Count Classification Percent
1487 1 – 25% Roof Damage 41.42
326 26 to 50% Roof Damage 9.08
131 51 to 75% Roof Damage 3.65
126 76 to 100% Roof Damage 3.51
1007 No Damage 28.05
17 No Imagery 0.47
496 Structure Destroyed 13.82
3590 Total 100

So 25% of the houses had no roof damage. 60% had something happen. More or less 15% were leveled. I’ve heard ancillary stories where almost all houses had water coming in them and in a warm tropical climate you get mold. Mold would make the house unusable for me.

Anyway – I worry about the 2018 Hurricane season that is upon us. Maybe it will be quiet – maybe it won’t be. AppGeo has Mapgeo for the islands. It worked out well. I’m going to try to “build” a database here so in case something happens and I’m not starting from scratch in case I get to help out again. I hope I don’t help as nothing happens.

 

Floatsam and Jetsam

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Here’s my random Blog post ….

I think I have 4 usable computers in my office. Two are running Ubuntu as a Desktop, one is running Ubuntu server, one is running Windows 10 (and I’m surprised that laptop still runs). My two main machines are running Ubuntu 17.04. I’ve jumped all over the place with desktops. The run has been Gnome 2, XFCE, Mate and I’ve just jumped to Gnome 3. For a few months I was on the fluxbox side of life.

Why Gnome 3?  I haven’t run “stock Ubuntu” since the Unity desktop. With the announcement that Ubuntu was back to Gnome 3 I decided maybe it was time to give it a another run. I love Mate. I love XFCE – but I needed a change. So – a change. Overall – it’s not half bad. I remember When Gnome 3 first made an appearance I hated it – I’m appreciating the keyboard centric approach now. Unity was keyboard centric – but too locked for my enjoyment. My only hate – the amount of RAM consumed. I need to up the RAM on my workstation. Not solely because of Gnome – but just because I do a lot and I think it’s time for an upgrade.

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I started running Ubuntu full-time in 2013 when I had to work in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Hurricane Irma reminded me of the craziness of working there. After being down there for 4 or 5 months I became somewhat obsessed with portability. That was my first jump into open source with QGIS and PostGIS. There were many days where the internet wasn’t available. I remember one day where two of us were carrying 2 laptops, two power strips, a 50 foot extension cord, and a printer. We made a wrong turn walking from a seaport and wandered aimlessly for about an hour looking for the car rental agency. One night I was sitting on a porch stealing internet from someone almost out of range trying to download/upload data. I became weird about leaving with my laptop for a walk on the island. If I happen to hit “free internet” I stopped and worked. Better yet if I could recharge it.

I’ve wondered for the better part of a week how I would work post hurricane with scarce electricity and almost no internet. On a good day back in 2013 the internet was scarce. I would get a call or email and ask me to download a 4gb file and you might as well have asked me to fly on those days. One of my friends called from St Thomas and he’s working his way through GIS data on a desktop. My laptops usually get about 4.5 hours off a full charge. If I’m working toss that back to three hours. The longest I’ve ever went without electricity was a week back in 2011. I borrowed a friend’s generator to get my desktop running to move data to my laptop and then head to the nearest coffee shop to work.

This week I wondered if I could get a 56K modem back “online” if I had to. Then I realized my current rental doesn’t even have intact phone lines. Hah.

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I was at FOSS4G in Boston over a month ago. It doesn’t feel like a month. Ran into one of the volunteers who is a PhD Candidate at Columbia U. One thing led to another and we start discussing his dissertation. I have threatened over the last bit to do a PostGIS class. I keep backing off because “How well do I actually know this piece of software?”. I get by. I enjoy it. I don’t know if I could teach it. So – I started randomly answering questions on data analysis.

He offered to pay me. I refused. This year I’ve been a “smart” capitalist. I would say raging but that’s not entirely true. I cut all volunteer jobs down to 1. I give consistent estimates. I don’t chase work nor am I getting into “low bid” situations where my throat is getting cut. It is what it is – I will get what you want done as quickly as possible and correct. So – the Q & A on PostGIS and data is sorta nice. I guess I can still yell “it’s still not 100% about the money” a bit as I run this business and look at ways to increase efficiency and work. I’m learning a few things as this person isn’t primarily a GIS guy – it’s a tool. I’m helping him build out his toolbox of data tricks.

Anyway….back to work…..

 

 

 

Northeast Florida GIS Users Group – May 15th 2014

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So I’m headed to Florida…….Here is the announcement. Stop in if you can.

Please join us at our upcoming NEFGIS User Group Meeting!!

Lunch will be provided compliments of our sponsor, Navigation Electronics, Inc. www.neigps.com

Please RSVP if you plan on coming so that we can ensure there is enough food.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1YeRwGe7XvdH6KJlOKgb1m0NQTjac4rpX0nu8bIYaZn8/viewform

This is an open invitation and we encourage you to Forward to a Friend.
 
NEFGIS User Group Meeting – Location provided by St Johns County Utility Dept

Thursday May 15th – 11:30 am to 1:30 pm
St Johns County Utility Department
1205 State Road 16
St. Augustine, FL 32084
29.9154829, -81.3730766
MAP
 
11:30am – 12:15pm
Lunch and Socialization

12:15pm – 12:30pm
NEFGIS Announcements and a word from our lunch sponsor.

12:30pm – 1pm
Addressing in the US Virgin Islands
Randy Hale, GISP
North River Geographic Systems – https://www.northrivergeographic.com

Randal Hale is the owner of North River Geographic Systems (NRGS). NRGS provides geospatial services to public and private organizations with an emphasis on data/process over software. He worked for several years for the Federal Gov’t before retiring to work full time at NRGS. He’s on the board for Georgia URISA and Mid South ASPRS. He also has a 3.5 lb toothless Siamese cat.

1pm – 1:30pm
Intro to GISCorps
Allen Ibaugh, AICP, GISP
Data Transfer Solutions – www.dtsgis.com

Allen Ibaugh is the CEO of DTS, a technology business focused on developing and deploying GIS, multimedia (video/software/graphics), and web-based solutions for government and private industry, particularly in the transportation marketplace.  Mr. Ibaugh is the current President of URISA and is on the core committee of GISCorps. GISCorps provides volunteer services to support humanitarian relief, emergency response, health and education, local capacity building, and community development, as well as volunteer expertise in critical technology to non-profit and governmental organizations that are unable to acquire it on their own. 

In an effort to properly represent NEFGIS, please UPDATE YOUR PROFILE.
 

The NEFGIS  Group invites you to be a member of our group
NEFGIS LinkedIn Page

Regards,
NEFGIS

Foot Washing and an Address

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By day four it was a joke between myself and Laurie.

Laurie: “Are you taking pictures of me?”
Me: “Only your shoulder. If you were to pose elegantly I would get one of you”.

2013-03-28_15-11-19

Laurie: “What time will we finish today?”.
Me: “What time do you need us to be finished?”
Laurie: “There is foot washing at church tonight so I must be ready”.

We had almost been in the USVI a month and were just finishing the first study area. It was also the week before Easter. People were getting a bit nervous the closer we got to the Holiday. Holidays in the islands always need a bit of padding on either side – I think this one was turning into the four days of easter. Maybe five. Apparently it is a big deal to go camping also on the beach.

Also the idea of foot washing had me curious. I heard people calling it “Maundy Thursday“. So I asked Laurie what denomination he belonged to and he answered “Church of God.” Being a Chattanooga Native I immediately had to ask “So Have you been to Cleveland TN?”. Cleveland is home of the Church of God headquarters.

Laurie: “No No but I do want to go. We send people to the meeting every year and I haven’t gotten to go…yet”.

Maps are important. Location is everything.

Me: “Laurie do you know where Chattanooga is located? I’m 30 miles from Cleveland”.

He threw down all the bags and hugged me. “God has brought you to the Islands I AM SOOOO HAPPY”.

We finished up that day early and everyone left. We heard the final word of “please don’t work tomorrow”. Except we had one more street to do and that was done quickly and early enough no one noticed as we drove down the street. I think our quickest addressed street was on Good Friday.

It hasn’t quite been a year but I do miss the insanity of the islands.

Fulcrum to the Rescue: Field Data Collection Made Easy in the U.S. Virgin Islands

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I recently wrote a guest blog entry for Fulcrum app and figured I would add the link to it here. Enjoy!

Update – 12.05.13: Applied Geographics (AppGeo) has released their MapGeo of the USVI SAI pilot project. You can view the interactive web map containing the addresses for the pilot study areas on all three islands here: http://www.mapgeo.com/USVI/

Screenshot of MapGeo for the USVI SAI pilot project in Mon Bijou, St. Croix.

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Fulcrum to the Rescue: Field Data Collection Made Easy in the U.S. Virgin Islands

15 October 2013 by Carol Kraemer

 

Earlier this year, Applied Geographics (AppGeo) and Spatial Focus embarked on a 3 month pilot phase of an address reference system project on St. Croix, St. John, and St. Thomas – the three main islands of the U.S. Virgin Island Territory – for the Office of Lieutenant Governor Gregory R. Francis. 1500 of roughly 120,000 addresses covering the three islands were assigned during the pilot phase. The field crew was faced with having to develop procedures that would support a small local team who had limited experience with GIS technology and even more limited access to communication technology. This part of the story took place during the latter part of the pilot project (late May-June 2013), in the second and third pilot study areas in Cruz Bay, St. John and Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas. The Fulcrum app was incorporated into the field data collection process making it possible to develop, deploy, implement and maintain mobile applications quickly and easily. Read more on the Fulcrum Blog…