On July 12, 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau, in cooperation with the National Weather Service, launched OnTheMap for Emergency Management: Hurricanes, a Web-based tool that provides real-time workforce information when a hurricane strikes land in the United States.
The online tool is located at http://lehdmap4.did.census.gov/themap4/em/index.html, available 24/7 and free to the public.
When a storm's leading winds make landfall, the application will be activated automatically to use the live feed from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) and generate a map and a dashboard report on the characteristics of the local workforce within the wind swath of the storm, such as the affected industries, the ages of workers and workers' earnings with a simple click of a link.
For each NHC update at 6-hour intervals, OnTheMap for Emergency Management: Hurricanes updates the map and workforce information and preserves previous records, placing valuable information directly into the hands of emergency planners and local officials.
OnTheMap for Emergency Management: Hurricanes is a product of OnTheMap, an online mapping and reporting application that shows the relationship between where people work and where they live, as well as the characteristics of the workforce. The creative approach of OnTheMap was cited in the 2008 Economic Report of the President and as a major U.S. statistical innovation in the United Nations Statistical Commission in 2009.
OnTheMap is a product of the voluntary Local Employment Dynamics Partnership between the Census Bureau and the state workforce agencies. In this regard, OnTheMap for Emergency Management: Hurricanes exemplifies how inter-disciplinary collaboration can optimize the merit and value of each discipline in meteorology, statistics, and labor market information.
The presentation will discuss lessons learns, as well as exploration of the next steps forward.
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