Hawaii Flood Response Tool: A GIS-Based Tool for Enhancing Flood Response Activities

Recent flood events in Hawaii exposed a need for better decision support tools during real time flood events. The NOAA Pacific Services Center partnered with the City and County of Honolulu's Department of Emergency Management to develop the Hawaii Flood Response Tool — Oahu Pilot. The tool was developed utilizing free GIS software, ESRI's ArcGIS Explorer, to allow multiple users within the City and County's Emergency Operations Center to utilize the tool without the need to purchase costly GIS software. The tool allows the user to interact with locally stored GIS data, such as roads and critical facilities, along with numerous real-time datasets from NOAA and USGS, such as, precipitation gage data, river gage data, National Weather Service (NWS) flood warning polygons, and NWS quantitative precipitation forecast data. The tool is currently being expanded to the County of Kauai, with the intention of expanding to the entire State of Hawaii.