In an effort to assist expediting the implementation of USNG throughout Florida and the United States, we are sharing the information from the About page on the http://usng-gis.org/index.html website below.

The USNG-GIS.ORG: Mission

GIS offices around the state are grappling with similar mapping challenges such as irregular and changing geographic areas, complex visualizations, data archival, and privacy concerns. Many of Florida’s cities and counties duplicate work efforts regarding demographics and census data.

Our goal is to assist Florida state and local governments in their GIS work by demonstrating the advantages of the United States National Grid (USNG) GIS Data Model. This model allows for high-resolution data of all types, improved visualizations, improved analysis, and easy data transfer between agencies.

Our mission is to provide a platform to assist Florida government agencies in their GIS duties. We demonstrate a GIS data structure that works at multiple scales. We provide starter datasets of basic population data, land use, and land cover so that GIS practitioners can begin testing these ideas for themselves.

The post The Florida USNG GIS Data Model website appeared first on USNG Florida.

When: Wed Jan 18, 2017 2:30pm – 4:30pm (EST)
Where: Fire Rescue East / Ocean Center
101 North Atlantic Avenue
Daytona Beach, FL {17R MN 9891 3328} + telecon
3RD annual meeting about USNG implementation nationwide; not a training class. Room M01D of Ocean Center. Attendance is FREE to any meeting regardless of all references to conference costs, etc.

2017 USNG Update – 2 Instructor CEUs

General Agenda:
Major events of the last year related to USNG
Open issues
Trail marking
State by state awareness
Open Discussion
Questions & answers

Description:
Free & low cost applications for geospatial awareness – US National Grid.  The ability to place US National Grid, the state standard coordinate system, in-service within your jurisdiction, can now be done in mere minutes with the proper information.   After an overview of the basics of US National Grid,  smart phone apps and web tools will be described and demonstrated.   Case studies will analyzed.
Albert Studt, Lieutenant, Cape Canaveral Fire Rescue

See the web page below about this years event:
http://www.ffca.org/fire-rescue-east

Online login / telecon information to be transmitted in the future (& posted to Facebook & Twitter) and/or send email to: USNG08@gmail.com 2-3 days prior.

Some info:
http://usngflorida.org/
https://medium.com/@USNGFlorida
https://twitter.com/usngflorida

Please forward to interested persons.

Al Studt, CFPS, CET

The post 3RD annual meeting about USNG implementation nationwide – Daytona Beach – Florida Fire Chiefs Association appeared first on USNG Florida.

The post USNG is Saving Lives & helping to Find the Injured – booth at NASA Innovation Expo 2016 appeared first on USNG Florida.

AND HOW DO THEY TRACK AND MAP ALL PEOPLE AND BUILDINGS WHEN ALL ROAD SIGNS ARE DESTROYED?

Here is an excerpt from the story at MissionManager.com to explain this training:

“A tornado rips through Lakeland, Fla., leveling a campground, destroying a building and toppling multiple vehicles with “victims” trapped in torn and twisted wreckage. Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) teams work side-by-side as they come to the aid of the trapped victims, using hydraulic cutters, saws and spreaders to rip through roofs and crushed doors. Meanwhile, helicopters and drones fly overhead to access the damage and pinpoint the location of the victims. (compliments of MissionManager.com)

 

Fortunately for Lakeland, the large-scale disaster was a 24-hour joint exercise designed to put first responders to the test – namely USAR teams from the Florida Task Force 4 (FL-TF4) and the Lakeland Fire Department. Luckily, the victims were role-players and mannequins, and the campground was a paint-ball field.

It was FL-TF4’s annual mobilization exercise, called MOBEX 2015, held October 6 to test the readiness levels of the USAR teams.  The exercise focused on all aspects of the deployment, not just on the skills of individual members and teams but also on the logistics, preparation and planning for a catastrophic event.”

Be sure to watch the excellent video footage, and read the rest of the story at MissionManager.com here.

The post Florida Task Force 4 (FL-TF4) Joint USAR Exercise Incorporates U.S. National Grid and Mission Manager Incident Command Software for Team Coordination, Live Tracking and Situational Awareness in Lakeland , Florida appeared first on USNG Florida.

Here is an excerpt from the story with a link to the rest of the article:

It wasn’t a typical 911 call: last fall, a horseback rider wandered into Whitetail Woods Regional Park and became lost. Then his horse fell through a boardwalk and got stuck in the mud.

The caller reported his location using an eight-digit number found on a nearby trail post. First responders located him quickly and saved the horse, said Randy Knippel, geographic information system manager for Dakota County.

For Knippel, it’s a success story demonstrating the value of emergency location markers, a system he’s encouraged county parks to implement.

Link to the Startribune article Erin Sadler here.

The post Lost in a Dakota County park? Help is on the way, thanks to new signs. appeared first on USNG Florida.

See the article here:

The post Florida Fire Chief’s Association (FFCA) Position statement: US National Grid map updates and systems configuration appeared first on USNG Florida.

The post Wildfire Aug 2014 Studt Lessons Yarnell Hill Fire appeared first on USNG Florida.

Link to open the Florida Today Hurricane Preparedness map:
http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php?usng=17R_MM_9347_2639&tilt=off&z=9&t=m&q=http://usngflorida.org/files/gis-files/florida_today.txt

This map is displayed in your browser by Gmap4 which is an enhanced google map viewer. If you have not done so already, please take a moment and read the following “Tips” to learn how to:

• Use your smartphone GPS feature to center the map at your location
• See high resolution USGS topographic maps
• Easily manage GIS overlay layers
• Use the maps offline
• And more….

Tips for using Gmap4 to view these maps

Tip: To turn GIS overlay layers on and off, open the menu that lets you change the basemap. After that menu opens on a desktop/laptop you will see a column labeled “Overlays” and on a mobile device you will need to scroll down to the “Overlays” section. Click/touch an overlay layer to turn it on and again to turn it off. Also, look near the bottom of the list of built-in basemaps to see if the map includes any additional basemaps.

Gmap4 displays data that others have prepared. Gmap4 does not have any control over the appearance, completeness or correctness of the data that you see on the map.

These map legends are hosted on the same GIS servers that are hosting the data. These links will often display legend information for data layers that are not on the map. Use the layer name and layer number that you see below to find the correct symbology in the map legend.

CLICK HERE to see the legend for:

• Weather watch warning (1)

CLICK HERE to see the legend for:

• 4hr Wind weather report (6)
• 4hr Rain / flooding report (8)

CLICK HERE to see the legend for:

• Storm surge category 1 (0)
• Storm surge category 2 (1)
• Storm surge category 3 (2)
• Storm surge category 4 (3)
• Storm surge category 5 (4)

CLICK HERE to see the legend for:

• Reported Road Closure (0)
• Evacuation Route (1)

CLICK HERE to see the legend for:

• Crash (0)
• Traffic congestion (1)

CLICK HERE to see the legend for:

• Emergency Medical Service (10)
• Fire Station (13)
• Law Enforcement (18)

CLICK HERE to see the legend for:

• Open shelter (0)
• Closed shelter (1)
• Full shelter (2)

CLICK HERE to see the legend for:

• Power out by county (1,2)

The FEMA shelter layers display data from the FEMA National Shelter System (NSS) database. The FEMA NSS database is synchronized every morning with the American Red Cross shelter database. After this daily refresh, FEMA GIS connects every 20 minutes to the FEMA NSS database looking for any shelter updates that occur throughout the day in the FEMA NSS.

The post About the Florida Today Hurricane Preparedness Map appeared first on USNG Florida.

All new articles and updates that require their own page as a post, will go here.  And of course, there will be a list of the most recent posts in the right side column of all pages in the site, except home page.  This is similar to the page link I provide in the next sentence here, which is a list of recent posts displayed on many of the pages within the USNGCenter.org website,  in the right hand column.  http://usngcenter.org/portfolio-item/review-board/     Next up is development of the “Categories” for the database to make this website, as Useable and User Friendly as possible. Something we will want to do during the early stages of the site development.  This will make the site search feature an excellent tool for quickly searching recent articles, terms and archives.

The post News-Blog appeared first on USNG Florida.