Real Time Collaboration and Web 2.0 tools, tips, and reviews

Hey, congratulations on getting singled out as an "angry listener" (http://www.ogleearth.com/2006/03/us_national_gri.html) !! Wish I could make that elite, but not too small list.

I think the biggest problem with the blase response is that there *is* history with Latitude and Longitude. It is communicated in three common ways, depending on the person and what they are doing (decimal degrees, decimal minutes, and degrees-minutes-seconds), and that doesn't even take other issues like datums into account. Even when people discuss it in advance, poeple still get confused. And how far is .0003 degrees? The National Grid is yet another standard, but it doesn't have the indecisiveness that Lat Long has, nor the poor showing in the area or distance calculations. Still doesn't address the routing issue for something confined by terrain or roads (fire engines won't go in a straight line across hill, dale and river...).

Heh! Somebody interpreted my post as "angry"? It was more in the vein of "amazed". Not having a standard mapping language, particularly among emergency responders is on a par with not having a common communications network. Amazing, yet both problems remain unresolved.

Nice article. Your insights are quite competent.

I was spurred into looking around on the web some and this is some of what I have found.

Not having a common map grid, according to a major player in disaster response (DOD) before Katrina, is truly "a critical deficiency in U.S. consequence management."

According to former FEMA Director James Lee Witt more than four years ago, a common map grid is a "must have" lesson-learned from long ago. (http://www.comcare.org/uploads/USNG.pdf)

Many professionals are in the "amazed" category, others just don't, or won't, get it, the sheer multitude of reasons, to many to list here, for a common map grid before a disaster hits... New Orleans or Pakistan ;-)

"One of the three most important immediate steps that the Government could take to improve homeland security." The White House (12/2001)

What has happened since? Nearly five years later, how many map reference systems were used for Katrina? Were search and rescue operations termed by the generals in meeting with President Bush "a train wreck"? What could be at least one of the reasons? Hmmm, all searchers using the same grid?

So many of the responders had no maps, or very poor quality maps, let alone high quality and properly gridded maps (http://www.usfa.fema.gov/subjects/emr-isac/infograms/ig2005/igoct2005.shtm)

What is "preparedness"?

Has FEMA or DHS asked folks to begin setting their location based tools, maps, GPS, GIS, plans and protocols to the same thing, USNG? I think not, though could be wrong because I did find were the past two years the DHS State and Local Grants application package has made prominent mention of USNG.

What was FEMA's official position when the standard was first adopted almost five years ago? ("...the FEMA program offices anticipate that the use of this system (USNG-NAD83) for identifying locations among emergency management personnel and agencies will help save lives, reduce the costs of disaster, and enhance preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation efforts. Particularly valuable is its compatibility with the system used by the National Guard and others, the Military Grid Reference System (MGRS).")

GoogleEarth? Perhaps as commercial uses for geoaddressing using USNG inevitably increase...? There certainly would be no harm in adding such capabilities now as a public service (recenter using grid coordinate; geoaddress at the cursor location; print maps with USNG overlay; routing using cross-streets AND USNG geocoordinates as waypoints.... (USNG was never intended to replace street addresses, rather enhance....)

Should be interesting to see how this coming hurricane season goes.

Thanks for providing some solid background to my article. So far, I see no evidence that the lessons of Katrina are being implemented in preparation for this year's hurricane season, at least as far as a unified mapping system is concerned. I guess time will tell.