A collaboration between several state offices is garnering international attention for its work using geographical information systems, or G.I.S. to help first responders.
As part of a collaboration with the State Emergency Management Agency and the Missouri Office of Administration, the Office of Geospatial Information develops in-depth maps using different factors, such as weather and river gauges, to give first responders a look at what is going on in emergency situations.
In July, the team will a receive an award at the Esri User Conference. Esri is a global leader in G.I.S. and pioneered the technology.
Tracy Schloss, the director of the Office of Geospatial Information, said the attention is for the work they have done to help the State Emergency Management Agency, or SEMA.
"The system and the technology has matured enough that we can now start to support the first responders and they can be boots on the ground and they don’t have to worry about building situational maps," Schloss said. "They can get that information to a place like SEMA. We can manage all of those layers of information and it can go up on to the situational viewer that SEMA has."
SEMA said the tools the G.I.S. team created are beneficial to helping manage emergency situations.