EVG Aids in Hurricane Sandy Disaster Response Efforts

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. In the wake of Hurricane Sandy’s immense destruction, the immediate need for large wall maps of the disaster areas became paramount to relief agencies. After seeking solutions from various government agencies, Team Rubicon (TR) was referred to East View Geospatial (EVG). TR’s task for EVG was to perform rapid customization and plotting of USGS maps of the New Jersey shore, Staten Island and Long Island. EVG completed the work and expressed shipped the maps to TR within several hours of the request.

Digital raster maps are adequate for many day-to-day mapping duties, but when it comes to in-person emergency planning in a disaster response war room, large paper maps are a must. EVG Founder and CEO, Kent D. Lee shared, "In an age where geospatial data is increasingly produced and distributed digitally, paper map creations remain vital. EVG was really pleased to have been asked to put this production together and lend a small amount of assistance following this catastrophic event."

From a production standpoint, EVG chose 1:24,000 and 1:100,000 scale USGS topographic mapping for coverage over three disaster areas specified by TR. The three areas were: 1) New Jersey Shore (100K – Atlantic City, Cape May, Hammonton, Long Branch and Trenton); 2) Long Island (100K – Bridgeport, New Haven, Long Island East and West and Block Island); 3) Staten Island (24K – Elizabeth, Jersey City, Keyport, Perth Amboy, South Amboy, Arthur Kill and The Narrows). EVG georeferenced and mosaiced the map sheets together to create seamless coverage for each specified area. TR wanted wall map sizes so EVG blew them up 25-35% their original size. The last step was to plot them off in panel sizes, generally 3′ x 8′ in size. The end product gave TR a visual tool to assess and help with organization and control of the areas hit by Hurricane Sandy.

About East View

East View was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. East View is comprised of East View Information Services (www.eastview.com), East View Geospatial (www.geospatial.com) and East View Map Link (www.maplink.com). East View maintains thousands of supplier/publisher relationships throughout the world for maps and geospatial data and Russian, Arabic and Chinese-produced social and hard science content. East View manages a data center, library and warehouse in Minneapolis where it hosts and stores dozens of foreign language databases, hundreds of thousands of maps and atlases and millions of geospatial, Russian, Chinese and Arabic metadata records. Uncommon Information. Extraordinary Places. East View.

About Team Rubicon

Team Rubicon (TR) unites the skills and experience of military veterans with first responders to rapidly deploy emergency response teams into crisis situations. TR offers veterans a chance to continue their service by helping and empowering those afflicted by disasters, and also themselves. For more about Team Rubicon, visit www.teamrubiconusa.org.