Disaster Documentation Revisited The Evolving Damage Assessments of Emergency Management in Oregon

Abstract

This report revisits a previous case study focused on the computing machinery and design of communication that are employed at the local, county, regional, state, and federal levels in Oregon to collect, review, and publish damage assessments of disasters and other emergency events. Since the last report, emergency managers throughout Oregon have faced numerous disaster incidents, including the COVID-19 pandemic, ice storms, flooding, and some of the worst heat waves, drought conditions, and megafires on record, with the threat of more to come in the years ahead. After years of research and development, fueled by lessons learned from a catastrophic wildfire season, a new generation of damage assessment tools and shared services has been pushed to the fore, ones which integrate geographic information systems and relational spatial databases not only to help assess damage but also automate and coordinate workflows. This revisitation explores the urgency and impetus for change and analyzes the Oregon Damage Assessment Project, a statewide initiative of the Office of Emergency Management to standardize shared tools and services for government agencies, partner organizations, and the public at large.