Esri Assists Thailand Flood Response

"We've been working closely with Esri Thailand, which is fully engaged in this terrible event," says Russ Johnson, director of public safety solutions for Esri. "The Thailand government and many others are working around the clock to minimize the flooding impacts and save lives."

Esri solutions and services enable officials to capture, integrate, analyze, and share information from multiple sources. This supports rapid, effective decision making at many levels. First responders, emergency managers, and others can conduct rescue operations; protect critical infrastructure; evacuate areas; identify medical needs; classify severely damaged buildings; deliver vital food, water, and supplies; and prioritize recovery.

Esri Thailand is also helping government officials more accurately locate calls and reports, as well as optimize the routing of emergency services and the delivery of goods. This work and improved data collection will help with the response and recovery efforts, which will take years to complete.

Esri's services and application development support for emergency response efforts include a social media web application available for both the media and the public. People can follow events in near real time using the map application to gain a greater understanding of the situation. The application includes links to news reports as well as Tweets, YouTube videos, Flickr photos, and reports from Ushahidi. It also gives people the ability to view streets, satellite imagery, and topographic maps as part of its map overlay capabilities. People can also request assistance and access additional resources from the online application.

About Esri
Since 1969, Esri has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in GIS technology, Esri software is used in more than 300,000 organizations worldwide including each of the 200 largest cities in the United States, most national governments, more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. Esri applications, running on more than one million desktops and thousands of web and enterprise servers, provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis. Esri is the only vendor that provides complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms. Visit us at esri.com/news.