2016 SAG Award Winners

City of New Braunfels

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Project Goal

The goal of the project was to leverage the GIS technology in place to provide a more efficient means to communicate to the emergency management staff and the public the locations of the hazard areas as defined by flooding waters making the streets impassable and dangerous. The city wanted to enhance the existing road closure application by using a more reliable application and data structure that encompassed emergency management functions. The city wanted an application that was device agnostic, easy to use and centralized in the existing GIS database. If the data was centralize, then the city would have more flexibility with developing and deploying other applications such Operations Dashboard for situational awareness or using other applications like Collector to update the feature classes in the field.
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Business Problem Solved

The problem that we solved was expediting the communication process during a flooding event. The current process involved information being passed through different divisions in the organization until it reached the GIS Division where the information was mapped providing the Emergency Operations Center and the public a spatial view of the flooding event. The critical step in solving the problem was to eliminate the information chain and provide the users with applications that would allow them to update their work status in a central database so that all users would have access to it. By implementing WAB, Collector and Desktop we were able to substantially reduce the amount of time from when the low water barricades were erected in the streets to when the map displayed the road as closed. The process has also increased the accuracy of the data being mapped since information does not get lost in the communication chain but populates the geodatabase instantly.

Technology Implemented

The road closure application utilizes many of the Esri software packages. The data is stored and maintained in an ArcSDE enterprise geodatabase using Microsoft SQL Server. ArcGIS Online Web App Builder is used to maintain the road closures on a daily basis not just for flooding events. During an event, Collector is used by field crews putting up the low water barricades. The GIS Division utilizes ArcGIS Desktop to maintain the road closures during an event as well. ArcGIS Online is also used to create the public site informing them of the currently closed roads and details of each. The Operations Dashboard is used to provide situational awareness for the emergency management staff. Geodatabase replication is utilized as a backup system during the event. The local government information model is used to host the data serving the applications.

Development Team Biography

Greg Brown graduated from Texas State University with a Bachelor of Science in Cartography/GIS in 1996. After graduation, his first job was with the City of Del Rio where he worked in the capacity of GIS Analyst and GIS Administrator. His next job was in the private sector working for Williams-Stackhouse Inc. There he created the GIS Division for the company whose primary functions were ortho photogrammetric mapping products. Next he landed in West Texas for 12 years working for the City of Abilene where he was the GIS Manager for the City of Abilene, Taylor County, Taylor County Appraisal District and Taylor County 911 District. He is currently employed at the City of New Braunfels where he has been for the past 4 ½ years as the GIS Manager. Greg Brown is a GIS Professional (GISP) and Certified Public Manager (CPM). He is the proud father of two children (Isabel and Nicholas) and husband to Liliana-Venegas. The family resides in San Antonio, TX.