Katrina Relief Mission – Second Deployment

9 Volunteers
GISCorps Volunteers – Lucia Barbato (left) and Katy Carpenter (right)
GISCorps Volunteers – With NVision Team Members
Mike Smith (farthest to the right) and Fred Beaver (standing next to Mike)
On September 10, the official request for more volunteers came from the EOC. This time the request was for nine additional volunteers to function as map production specialists. Seven of them were dispatched to Stone, Pearl River, Jackson, and Hancock counties and the other two will work in the Brain Bus in Jackson. A little about the second group. This group’s average years of experience is +/-10 and they come from Colorado, Arkansas (2), Texas (2), Alabama, Washington DC, Illinois, and Kentucky.
  1. Katy Carpenter, City of Fort Collins, CO
  2. John Goddard, City of Fayetteville, AR
  3. Beth McMillan, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, AR
  4. Mary Mekkers, City of Mobile, AL
  5. Lucia Barbato, Texas Tech University, TX
  6. Mike Smith, City of San Angelo, TX
  7. Fred Bevier, City of Wheaton, IL
  8. Daniel Juhn, Conservation International, DC
  9. Tom Moreland, Bluegrass Area Development District, KY

From Fred Bevier and Mike Smith, who were both deployed to Hancock County, MS where they ended up working side by side with the owner and the staff of a local GIS company called NVision. This is what they said about their mission and NVision:

“NVision owners Craig & Lalet Socorro and their complete staff took Mike & me in like we were family, I don’t know if they were recognized but they were outstanding in every way you could think of. Thanks for one of the greatest adventures in my life time.”

Fred Bevier, City of Wheaton, IL

“….Fred is correct, Nvision was great to us. We ate very good at Craig and Lalet’s home!! … I could not have asked for a better group to work with than Fred Bevier (ask Fred about his Blues Brothers Act) of GISCorps and the guys from NVision.”

Mike Smith, City of San Angelo, TX

“The experience of witnessing in the procedures that an EOC follows and the various coordination and organization challenges they faced at all levels was of great value to me as a GIS analyst and city government employee in terms of data availability, integrity, organization and documentation. But, perhaps more importantly, the experience was also a great lesson in the need of jurisdictions and entities to cooperate in data sharing and data integrity, not only as a necessity toward emergency preparedness, but on a daily basis for the general benefit of the public at large rather the individual institution.“

Mary Mekkers, City of Mobile, AL

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