Guiding Hurricane Michael Recovery: Data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Census Data Tools

The U.S. Census Bureau provides a wealth of demographic, socioeconomic, housing, and business data that can be invaluable to Emergency Management officials, but accessing these data can often be challenging for users not familiar with Census programs and Tools. This session will focus on two Census data tools designed to make it easier for these users to access this critical data - OnTheMap for Emergency Management (OtM EM) and Census Business Builder: Regional Analyst Edition (CBB: RAE). OtM EM overlays the boundaries of disaster declaration areas and other potentially impacted areas and presents key demographic and workforce for the region that can be useful during response to a disaster. CBB: RAE presents similar demographic data plus key business and consumer spending data and allows the user to define their own area, which can be useful not only during the event but also during recovery efforts and for "What If?" analysis for Disaster Preparedness.

This interactive session will explore these two tools and the role they have played during the response to and the recovery efforts after Hurricane Michael. Key challenges officials face when responding to disasters (and how these tools can help) will be discussed as will selected findings from the people as businesses potentially impacted by this hurricane.