Acces to ArcGIS Online Resources in Emergency Situations

[deleted-user-t3dSviijg-m9]

Hello... I am quite familiar with the majority of ESRI's software, but now am venturing into a somewhat unfamiliar territory that is Emergency Operations. My biggest question I suppose is, how are other municipalities that utilize ArcGIS Online and Emergency Response Solutions accessing the resources provided by ESRI during a major natural disaster, such as a hurricane. 

We are in Florida, and hurricanes are unfortunately a regular occurrence between July-October. If we lose internet capabilities, our internal network will be fine and operational; But if we are utilizing some of the solutions provided, we rely on access to ArcGIS Online, as well as the Javascript API that the applications are constructed upon, which is hosted by ESRI. If we go "black" so to speak, and are disconnected from the outside world, wouldn't that render a lot of these solutions useless, unless you have a contingency plan such as cellular data or possible satellite data as a back-up mode of communication to ESRI's servers?

I know you can host your ArcGIS Online apps locally, but those HTML/Javascript/and CSS3 files will still be referencing ArcGIS Online web maps, and the Javascript API's used to construct those apps. Does anyone have any suggestions or remarks on how their organization handles this situation?

Thanks!

[JoeBorgione]

Interesting question.  Many years ago I was part of a State Emergency Response team; at that time I was one a few people using ArcInfo, and working in the Dam Safety section it was a natural fit.  I wrote a few AMLs that performed some spatial analyses based on earthquake epicenter and magnitude.  One of the fulltime emergency planner guys asked me what he could expect of me if a 7.2 magnitude hit our locality.  I told him the first thing I was going to do is make sure my family was okay, and if that were the case I would try to get to the office.  I told him the first thing I would do at the office is wade through the rubble, pick my computer off the floor and see if I could log on.

I was imediately labeled a smart-a$$ and relieved of my duties for the team....

Now all these years later we still face the same basic problem as you have described and I'm still something of a smart-a$$ :  do your cellular plans have unlimited data?

All seriousness aside, in a large scale disaster, will you be able to count on a cellular network as your contingency plan?  I don't know about hurricanes but in here earthquake country, I wouldn't count on it being reliable.  Are  locally installed lightweight apps and data an option or (gasp!) paper maps?

Best of luck!

[deleted-user-t3dSviijg-m9]

Hey Joe - To answer your questions.... yes we do have unlimited data. But the caveat to that is, the last major hurricane my area received, a hurricane that didn't just have major rain and flooding, but severe damage to critical infrastructure as well as 80% of all homes experiencing damage, the entire city was completely without power for 2 weeks. 

I can't speak much for cellular service because at this time I was in high school and smart phones hadn't existed yet. We were still using those old Nokia phones. But I'm fairly certain cellular data and internet were non-existent for those 2 weeks as well. 

So obviously when a very serious hurricane hits, all bets are off and you have to rely on paper maps, or like you said lightweight, locally hosted apps. I haven't dove too deeply into 3rd party lightweight apps. I could probably create an HTML viewer that would allow some of our reporters to record public relief calls, which would be consuming the REST endpoints of our ArcGIS Server. Host the app internally, download ArcGIS Javascript API and host internally for the app to use. It's feasible. We have very serious redundancy plans in these events for our power and data restores, but when it comes to communicating to the outside world, we are limited to whatever damage may or may not have hit FPL or Comcast fiber lines. 

It's definitely an interesting subject, one that I am not too familiar with, but am quickly emerging myself in. Seems like you would need essentially 3 plans. 

1. Minor Hurricane - minor damage, flooding, internet connectivity or cellular is still functional

            - In this situation you could use your primary response applications driven by ArcGIS Online

2. Medium sized Hurricane - Average damage, flooding, some damage to critical infrastructure (pump houses, sub stations, bridges, etc), inter-mitten power outages, as well as intermitten internet capabilities/cellular.

            -In this situation, I suppose you could start with the basic internal HTML viewer that was created as it doesn't rely on anything other than your internal network, and as power/internet/cellular is restored, migrate the ArcGIS Online applications, which will be consuming the same REST endpoints as the viewer, so when we go back online, ArcGIS Online will get a dump of all edits and updates we've been making internally so we don't lose a step in the recovery and response process.

3. Large Hurricane - This is where things get interesting. You can't rely on cellular service. You can't rely on internet. You can't even guarantee that our Diesel back-up generator on the roof didn't sustain major damage and isn't functional for a few days, or didn't get completely blown off when it got hit by a boat that got picked up out of the harbor. In this situation, it would very obviously be paper maps until power comes back up. Once power comes back up, data and our IT infrastructure will be restored which means our internal network will be operational. We could migrate to the internal application. As infrastructure is repaired, continue to utilize functionality of Application until connectivity with ArcGIS Online can be restored. Then migrate to ArcGIS Online like in the second process.  

I think I may have just thought through my beginning proposal for damage recovery in this response hahaha

If you have any suggestions to those three situations, I would really appreciate the feedback.

Thanks Joe

[JoeBorgione]

I think I may have just thought through my beginning proposal for damage recovery in this response

I think you have too!  Your community is lucky to have you on board.

[deleted-user-t3dSviijg-m9]

Thanks Joe!

[DavidDenham]

Have you looked at using Portal for ArcGIS?  It has a lot of the features that ArcGIS Online offers, but it is locally hosted.  We have been using it for applications that we do not want to put on Arc GIS Online. 

[deleted-user-t3dSviijg-m9]

I have, but not extensively. I thought that it still referenced ESRI Javascript API which is hosted on their server. Does it have the option to download the API and host internally, then point all "web-maps" and "web-apps" to utilize the locally hosted API?

[DavidDenham]

I am not certain, but I believe that is the way that we have our Portal configured. We participate in the Community base map program and as a benefit they send us a copy of our data that ESRI uses to create the topographic base map.  We use that to create a local cache for our server.  That way we have a consistent look for our applications no matter which source Portal or AGO.   

[deleted-user-t3dSviijg-m9]

That's really nice for the basemaps. I'm curious though, if you guys completely lost internet connectivity to the outside world (but maintained internal network), would your applications continue to work? I feel like it would be a bit of an undertaking to create all the web-maps, then create all the web-apps that consume them, then access the source code for every map and every app, and redirect it to look to a local copy of the Javascript API. As well as any other ESRi specific items in the source code like AppID and webmap ID. I'm sure there is a way, but I'm curious if in the situation I oultlined (losing complete connectivity to the outside world), would your Portal apps and maps still function as is? Have you tested that?

[GISSupport3]

Yes, though EVERYTHING is in-house.