New Orleans Flood Resilience Experiment

The NISC supported the DHS S&T; First Responders Group (FRG) Flood Apex Program in facilitating the New Orleans Flood Resilience Experiment on January 23, 2017. This experiment took place in collaboration with the New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (NOHSEP) and Greater New Orleans, Inc. (GNO). Stakeholders from federal, state, and local governments, along with non-profit and private sector organizations participated to provide a whole of community perspective around a simulated flood hazard. An important goal of this experiment was to provide the NISC Member Portal technologies for participants to leverage against future hazards in order to help reduce flood fatalities and property losses, and enhance community-wide resiliency.

During the experiment, participants used the NISC Member Portal as the central information sharing platform to manage pre-defined Essential Elements of Information (EEIs). Participants used the Mutual Aid Resource Planner (MARP), which helps state and local agencies create resource plans for specific hazards and make capabilities searchable and actionable. The Virtual USA widget provided participants the capability to search multiple information products that can provide current-state situational awareness or present archived content from past activities. Finally, the Battle Rhythm Manager was used to help coordinate exercise injects in a virtual environment. The NISC Member Portal provides a utility for installing a Turnkey Exercise application containing both the Virtual USA and Battle Rhythm Manager widgets.

An after action will published soon. To learn more about the experiment and the technologies used, click here to view an Esri storymap of the experiment.