The Waze Virtual Emergency Operations Center (VEOC) has been activated at the request of the South Central Region to support their preparedness and response to :hurricane: Hurricane Harvey, set to make landfall on the central Texas Gulf coast as a major hurricane.
The VEOC purpose is to provide additional assistance to local and regional editors with enacting storm-related information:
1.) Road Closures (#harvey-tx-closures)
2.) Crisis Resources (e.g. Shelter locations) (#harvey-tx-shelters)
3.) Share information (#harvey-tx-chat)
ONLY hurricane related business should be conducted here. Any non-emergency editing should remain in local / regional channels.
As always, the locals are always in command, so long as they are available to be and unless otherwise delegated. Local TX and SCR editors are the go-to people.
Everyone can help! Even lower ranking editors who do not have editing access in Texas can still help by researching information, sharing PL’s, etc. Paste the information in the appropriate channels for Champs, CM, et al to take action on. We work as a team.
This is likely to be a prolonged event with multiple phases. Pace yourselves.
In the pre-landfall phase, we are primarily concerned with collecting and sharing information about shelters, refuges, and other crisis resources that Waze corporate people can map in the app. A simple search for “help” by a Wazer in the impacted area will pull up their closest emergency resources.
This storm is forecast to be a MAJOR hurricane. This means:
Widespread trees, power lines down and other debris blocking roadways for several days until responders can clear them.
Catastrophic coastal and inland flooding with closed roads due to high water for days until it settles down; possibly longer if roads and bridges are washed out.
Google - can you make an app within Waze to coordinate volunteer boat rescue teams for Texas flood-affected area? There could be two main functions:
1a) boat teams can register addresses (or lat/long derived from in-app gps) for addresses that they have visited;
1b) boat teams can confirm status of:
S1) “no victims remain at this location”,
S2) “some victims remain at the location.”
boat teams can receive updated maps showing status
S1) “no victims remain at this location”;
S2) “some victims remain at the location”;
S3) “unvisited location”
For those that might be wondering how things are going in TX with hurricane Harvey. Below are some stats. And the event is not over yet. They are now saying it might go back into the gulf and circle back around and hit TX again…
OK some stats to show how much work has been done so far. (special thanks to willdanneriv for help with formulas) So far we have processed 1,069 different closure request, 977 of which are still closed. We have opened back up 67 different request, So far 51 different counties in TX have active closures related to Harvey, We have closed 4,051 different segment id’s. This has all been done by 48 different editors submitting closures. There have been 23 different editors processing closures. These are either ones submitted as reported or ones they have submitted themselves.
A great job by all involved so far. These numbers will only grow as the event continues and more editors come over to assist. Thanks for everyone’s hard work. Hang in there and be safe.(edited)
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If you are interseted in helping come on over to the Waze VEOC. We can use editors to track down segments that need closed and editors with EA that can place the closures.
For those that might be wondering how things are going in TX and LA with Tropical Storm Harvey. Below are some stats. And the event is not over yet. OK some stats to show how much work has been done so far. (special thanks to willdanneriv for help with formulas) So far we have processed 1,486 different closure request, 1,166 of which are still closed. We have opened back up 291 different request, So far 61 different counties/parishes in TX and LA have active closures related to Harvey, We have closed 7,208 different segment id’s. Harris County (Houston) alone has had 206 requests for 1,070 segments. This has all been done by 54 different editors submitting closures. There have been 27 different editors processing closures. These are either ones submitted as reported or ones they have submitted themselves.A great job by all involved so far. These numbers will only grow as the event continues and more editors come over to assist. Thanks for everyone’s hard work. Hang in there and be safe
Also thanks to those doing BOTG closures that others are making permanent. Same thing with openings.
Quick update Now up to 1,730 closures processed. We have reopened 467. Yesterday we was still in double digits.
Some facts about the amount of water that has fallen so far and some different ways of think about it.
If you took the Empire State Building, more than a hundred stories tall, you could fill that entire volume 33,000 times with the water that fell on Houston and the surrounding areas. That shows you how much there was.
Cappucci estimates that in a 36-hour period, roughly 9 trillion gallons of water fell on the Houston area.
Fourteen million Olympic-size swimming pools. And picture that just sitting there. And that is why we’re seeing such amazing flooding in the Houston area.
The 9 trillion gallons of water dispensed so far is enough to fill the entire Great Salt Lake in Salt Lake City — twice!
It would take nine days straight for the Mississippi River to drain into Houston and equal the amount of water already there.
Waze has some of the most amazing volunteers that no one knows of.
This is probably just the first of many THANKS for all the help in TX and LA from all of the SCR Editors.
We are still working closures in two different states. TX/LA. In those two states 78 different counties have/had closures in place. We are now above 2,000 processed closures between the two states. Of the 2,000 closures 900+/- have been opened back up. We have closed 11,000 + different segment id’s. All of this work has been done by 60+/- volunteer editors. Some of the editors are finding the segments that need closed, some are dealing with closures in WME that are being reported by others, Some are BOTG reports, Some are monitoring channels looking for live user reports stating that roads we have closed are now in fact open. Even though Harvey has finally made landfall there is still much work needing to be done. We are still processing new closures along the path of the storm. As Harvey leaves an area we are checking to make sure roads we have closed still need to be closed. We can always use more help in working closures/openings. Some have been at this since before the storm hit. Come join in on the fun. The hard work has been noticed by some major operations like @fema@USCG@USACEHQ. They are using Waze.
We are still working closures in two different states. TX/LA. In those two states 82 different counties have/had closures in place. We are now above 2,100 processed closures between the two states. Of the 2,100 closures 1280+/- have been opened back up. We have closed 12,300 + different segment id’s. All of this work has been done by 60+/- volunteer editors. Some of the editors are finding the segments that need closed, some are dealing with closures in WME that are being reported by others, Some are BOTG reports, Some are monitoring channels looking for live user reports stating that roads we have closed are now in fact open.
Even though Harvey has finally made landfall there is still much work needing to be done. We are still processing new closures along the path of the storm. As rivers crest new closures are needed. As Harvey leaves an area we are checking to make sure roads we have closed still need to be closed. We can always use more help in working closures/openings. Some have been at this since before the storm hit. Come join in on the fun. The hard work has been noticed by some major operations like @fema@USCG@USACEHQ. They are using Waze.
We are still working closures in two different states. TX/LA. In those two states 82 different counties have/had closures in place. We are now above 2,250 processed closures between the two states. Of the 2,250 closures 1500+/- have been opened back up. We have closed 13,000 +/- different segment id’s. All of this work has been done by 60+/- volunteer editors.
Some of the editors are finding the segments that need closed, some are dealing with closures in WME that are being reported by others, Some are BOTG reports, Some are monitoring channels looking for live user reports stating that roads we have closed are now in fact open.
Even though Harvey has finally made landfall there is still much work needing to be done. We are still processing new closures along the path of the storm. As rivers crest new closures are needed. As Harvey leaves an area we are checking to make sure roads we have closed still need to be closed. We can always use more help in working closures/openings. Some have been at this since before the storm hit. Come join in on the fun. The hard work has been noticed by some major operations like @fema@USCG@USACEHQ. They are using Waze to navigate in the storm affected areas.
Quick update.
We are still working closures in two different states. TX/LA. We are now above 2,340 processed closures between the two states. Of the 2,430 closures 1,850+/- have been opened back up. We have closed 14,100 +/- different segment id’s. All of this work has been done by 60+/- volunteer editors.
We are still processing new closures along the path of the storm. As rivers crest new closures are needed. As Harvey leaves an area we are checking to make sure roads we have closed still need to be closed. We can always use more help in working closures/openings. Some have been at this since before the storm hit. Come join in on the fun. The hard work has been noticed by some major operations like @fema@USCG@USACEHQ. They are using Waze to navigate in the storm affected areas.
Now we have a new storm in the Atlantic that is looking to impact PR and VI by Wed. Then it will be heading towards the East Coast to strike sometime over the weekend. Irma is currently a cat 4 storm.
Quick update. The VEOC is still assisting in Harvey related closures. We still have 450 active closures in TX/LA. As the days pass the number is dropping. We are up to 2,473 total closures. The number of new closures is dropping as well.
We are now gearing up to assist with Hurricane Irma as it approaches PR/VI and then heads for the East Coast. More information will be coming out later.
Since I know the focus is now changing to Irma, On behalf of the entire SCR team, I wanted to take this opportunity to say thanks to all the VEOC Volunteers and coordinators for all the help during Harvey. There is no way we could have kept up with the 2500 +/- closures and all the Evacuation Shelters.
We are down to about 250 +/- closures still to monitor.
The VEOC is now doing a transition from Hurricane Harvey related events to dealing with Hurricane Irma. The storm is just now hitting the Florida Keys. The next 24-96 hours is going to be busy.
Some quick stats on Harvey. We are still working closures in two different states. TX/LA. In those two states. We are now above 2,490 processed closures between the two states. Of the 2,490 closures 2,190+/- have been opened back up. We have 219 active closures at this time. We have closed 14,350 +/- different segment id’s. All of this work has been done by 60+/- volunteer editors.
Now some quick stats on Irma. We have placed 433 shelters in 5 different states/territories. Most of these have been uploaded by Waze Staff. Push notification have been sent to App users in FL/GA/AL showing some of the shelter pins with instructions on how to find help. We already have closures in place in two different states/territories.
More updates as the storm passes unless I lose power/internet. In Northern GA so will have to wait and see. Stay safe everyone.
The VEOC is now doing a transition from Hurricane Harvey related events to dealing with Hurricane Irma. The SCR is going to pull back tracking of Hurricane Harvey related events into their region. As of this posting over 2,500 total closures processed. They still have around 140 closures in place. Some will be long term some will be in place short term as waters continue to recede.
We wish them well as they continue to recover from the affects of Hurricane Harvey.
For updates on Hurricane Irma please see the following forum post.
