Volunteers Map Crowdsourced Photos for Disasters Affecting the United States

Overview

The PhotoMappers project is in its ninth year of providing situational awareness to federal, state, and local emergency managers through crowdsourced photo geolocation during disasters. 

As in past years, PhotoMappers continues to be a collaboration between GISCorps, NAPSG Foundation, and CEDR Digital Corps. NAPSG Foundation hosts the PhotoMappers applications and serves as the principal point of contact for emergency managers at the federal, state and local levels. NAPSG staff field activation requests and remain in frequent communication with emergency responders throughout each activation, passing along areas of focus and concern to the PhotoMappers team. CEDR Digital Corps are the social media experts, contributing automated social media search tools and promoting the PhotoMappers effort on social media. GISCorps, in turn, fields and manages a large team of mapping volunteers. These volunteers scour social media for relevant photos of on-the-ground conditions, geolocate each photo as precisely as possible, and upload it to the map using a Survey123 form embedded in a custom Volunteer Portal built in Experience Builder. The GISCorps Admin Team vets each photo for locational accuracy and adds a primary lifeline and a preliminary building damage score where appropriate. Each GISCorps PhotoMappers activation is managed by members of the GISCorps Disaster Response Subcommittee.

Emergency managers and first responders can view and filter the vetted photos on interactive maps and dashboards, getting an at-a-glance sense of each storm’s impacts to the communities they serve. These applications, as well as the raw data, are publicly available on NAPSG’s PhotoMappers Hub Site.

Activations

Hurricane Milton

NAPSG requested PhotoMappers’ activation on October 9th as Hurricane Milton approached the Florida Panhandle. Seventeen incredible volunteers worked around the clock for three days to assist disaster response efforts, geolocating and validating 250 photos of the hurricane’s damage. 

Hurricane Helene

On September 26, 2024, Hurricane Helene made landfall in the Big Bend of Florida as a category 4 storm, one of the most powerful storms to impact the United States in recent years. Helene caused widespread flooding, power outages, and damage in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee. The outcomes have been devastating to many communities across the southeast.

At the request of Federal and state partners through the NAPSG Foundation, PhotoMappers flew into action on the evening of the 26th. The admin team tirelessly scoured social media and internet sources for images, while the broader PhotoMappers team used context clues to figure out where those photos were taken and provide spatial coordinates. The admin team carefully vets each photo manually to ensure metadata is accurate and complete. While many recent incidents have warranted smaller activations, primarily managed by the admin team, the response to Helene received robust support from the PhotoMappers community, including significant contributions by a number of first-time mappers!

As cloud cover persisted in the days after Helene and poor weather precluded aerial imaging collections, PhotoMappers remained the only consolidated source of imagery for many emergency managers. PhotoMappers was asked to extend support through the following Tuesday, finally deactivating on October 2nd. In that time, the team mapped a whopping 677 images.

This mission was supported by Admin Team members Brad Fisher, Dacey Zelman, Hannah Gonzalez, John Haddad, Keith Johnson, and Mackenzie Fox. GISCorps Core Committee members Erin Arkison and Monicque Lee led the mission with Advisory Board member Holly Torpey. German Whitley and Katie Picchione provided additional support. Thanks as always to NAPSG Foundation for being the conduit between PhotoMappers and the Emergency Management community and keeping the apps up to date.

Hurricane Francine

NAPSG requested PhotoMappers’ activation on September 12, 2024 as Hurricane Francine slammed into the southeastern United States. In a little over 24 hours, eight PhotoMappers volunteers worked to map 92 photos to provide improved situational awareness for emergency responders on the ground. The mission was deactivated September 13.

Hurricane Debby

Hurricane Debby made landfall on August 5, 2024. NAPSG requested PhotoMappers’ activation on August 5 to assist emergency management personnel as the storm wreaked havoc from Florida to New York State. The mission ran from August 10-15, and 21 amazing volunteers (12 of those being new recruits) supported emergency response efforts by mapping a total of 345 photos.

Hurricane Beryl 

On July 8th, 2024 PhotoMappers was asked to activate in support the State of Texas for Hurricane Beryl’s landfall along the Texas coastline and track across eastern Texas and into neigboring states.

Our team worked for two days and plotted 49 vetted photos for the activation to support the State of Texas disaster response efforts. Team members for this mission were Keith Johnson, Hannah Gonzales-Bridges, John Haddad, Mackenzie Fox, Bree Yates, Holley Torpey, and Monicque Lee. 

PhotoMappers is proud to have been requested and to have been of assistance in supporting the State of Texas emergency response!

May Severe Weather

A few small activations spread through the month of May made it seem like one long activation! The threat of severe weather brought flooding in Texas and tornadoes in multiple states.

NAPSG Foundation activated PhotoMappers for flooding in parts of East Texas that had started on May 1st. Counties affected included: Hardin, Harris, Liberty, Montgomery, Polk, San Jacinto, Trinity, and Walker! Over the course of about 24 hours, the PhotoMapper Admins located and mapped 60 images.

A week later NAPSG requested PhotoMappers activate for tornadoes that had inflicted severe damage in multiple communities spanning Texas, Oklahoma & Arkansas. The Admins were able to map 61 photos in another 24 hour activation!

Mapping volunteers for these missions included Hannah Bridges, Keith Johnson, Brad Fisher, Holley Torpey, Emilie Pratt, Hannah Larsen and Mackenzie Fox. Mission was led by Erin Arkison, Katie Picchione, Holly Torpey and Moncique Lee

Early January Severe Weather

2024 started off with a bang with serve weather that spawned tornadoes in the Gulf Coast and flash flooding along the Eastern Seaboard.NAPSG Foundation activated the PhotoMappers Admin team was asked to activate ahead of the line of storms on January 8th. Then on January 10th, the activation was opened up to the rest of the PhotoMapper volunteers. Over the course of the next 3 days, the PhotoMappers found, geolocated and mapped over 102 photos. Mapping volunteers for this mission included Darlene Pardiny and Don Maxwell. The Admin Team consisted of Keith Johnson, John Haddad, Emilie Pratt and Hannah Gonzales. The mission was led by Erin Arkison

Project complete.