Debris Management as part of Disaster Management
Following difficulty in tracking resources after a winter storm and wanting to move away from paper documentation after Hurricane Irma, White County decided that they needed a disaster management system to assist in tracking activities and costs during an incident. In 2020, the County found that Crisis Track met their disaster needs, first by tracking COVID-19 cases and then for debris monitoring during Tropical Storm Zeta recovery. TS Zeta was the first instance where the County used one system from the start of an incident through the end of the incident.
End-to-End Debris Monitoring
Without having a previously established workflow or debris monitoring process, White County was able to use Crisis Track from start to finish to log over 1,000 debris removal activities, documenting the locations, the times the collections took place, and events that occurred. The County conducted debris monitoring six days a week, having three to five teams operating at a time. White County was not only able to monitor operations in real-time from a mobile phone, but Crisis Track’s flexibility provided the opportunity to change team individuals at a moment’s notice, and thus not get hung up on logistics documentation. Additionally, the County worked with Crisis Track to create a customized Leaner/Hanger form during the event that helped streamline the debris monitoring process.
Debris Estimates Supporting the PDA and Grant Management Processes
The use of Crisis Track allowed White County to document preliminary damage assessments and current debris pickups, as well as made it easier to understand the debris locations to go to and activities to be done.
Within days after the incident, they were able to send the preliminary damage assessment data to GEMA and FEMA. This work helped designate the County for a PA declaration and output FEMA forms for the PA Grants management processes.
