Overview

This dashboard was developed to provide public access to historical FEMA disaster declarations. The primary objective of this dashboard is to facilitate the development of Local Hazard Mitigation Plans, with specific emphasis on the second bullet in bold below.

VEM provides a comprehensive plain-language checklist of FEMA LHMP requirements here. Basic requirements of the LHMP are:

• The plan documents engagement of the whole community, including historically and currently underrepresented or disadvantaged community members. The planning process must also include community decision-makers, such as the selectboard and zoning administrator.
• The plan assesses all hazards that may occur in the planning area and their community-specific impacts on assets, including people.
• The plan considers future conditions in determining vulnerabilities, including climate change, land use/development changes, and changes in population and/or demographics.
• The plan includes mitigation/adaptation actions to address each hazard assessed and provides implementation timelines, assigns responsibility for implementation, and identified potential funding sources. Mitigation actions must include consideration of education and outreach to the community, natural or nature-based strategies, structural projects, and planning and policy improvements.
• The plan identifies other planning mechanisms to integrate the resilience plan with, such as conservation plans, capital improvement plans, stormwater management plans, Town/Municipal Plans, compact settlement, and housing development.

Declarations Explorer Layout

Dashboard Platform Clarification

This dashboard was actually built in Experience Builder so that specific chart types could be added to the interface, but is otherwise designed similar to an ArcGIS Dashboard.

Key Features:

• Interactive Web Map
• Filter Widgets
• Indicator Text Widgets
• Dynamic Chart Widgets
• Dynamic Table Widget

Indicator Section

The indicator section contains three Text Widgets that summarize:

• Total Number of Disaster Declarations
• Damage Totals (in U.S. $)
• FEMA Obligations (in U.S. $)

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• Disaster Declarations Indicator Widget: Provides a dynamic count of total disaster declarations. When the user applies a filter this indicator updates using this expression COUNT(ObjectID). The indicator icon is available here

• Damage Totals Indicator Widget: Provides a dynamic sum of damage totals in U.S dollars. When the user applies a filter this indicator updates using this expression SUM(Total_Cost). The indicator icon is available here

• FEMA Obligations Indicator Widget: Provides a dynamic count of total disaster declarations. When the user applies a filter this indicator updates using this expression SUM(FEMA_Obligated). The indicator icon is available here

Web Map Contents

The dashboard contains a web map named Vermont FEMA Declaration Explorer, which is accessible here. The web map contains two feature layers; there are no filteres applied to the data, and no Arcade used for symbology.

Active Layers

Group	Layer Name	Type	Source
	FEMA Disaster Declarations By County	ESRI Basic Polygon	VEM Python Notebook
Boundaries	Vermont Towns	ESRI Basic Polygon	VCGI

VT Disaster Declarations Extraction Notebook

Extracts and Summarizes FEMA disaster declarations in Vermont.
This notebook is manually executed after a new declaration has been announced.
You can view the full, documented code in the VCGI repository below:

VCGI / vem-gis-tools / Disaster Declarations

Filter Widgets

There are two Filter widgets available for the user to refine the visualization. When a filter is applied or removed, the indicator widgets update, the map zooms to the area of interest, the charts display relevant data, and the table displays relevant records.

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• Federal Declarations Only: This filter is turned on by default to filter out emergency declarations. See here for more information on the distinction.

  

• FEMA Disaster Declarations By County: This filter allows the user to select a county of interest, a disaster type of interest, and a declaration number if known.

  
  
  

  • Filter Options: The tables below summarizes the available attributes for each filter:

  Counties
  Addison
  Bennington
  Caledonia
  Chittenden
  Essex
  Franklin
  Grand Isle
  Lamoille
  Orange
  Orleans
  Rutland
  Washington
  Windham
  Windsor

  Disaster Types
  Biological
  Flood
  Hurricane
  Severe Ice Storm
  Severe Storm

  FEMA Declaration #s
  DR-277-VT
  DR-397-VT
  DR-518-VT
  DR-712-VT
  DR-840-VT
  DR-875-VT
  DR-938-VT
  DR-990-VT
  DR-1063-VT
  DR-1101-VT
  DR-1124-VT
  DR-1184-VT
  DR-1201-VT
  DR-1228-VT
  DR-1307-VT
  DR-1336-VT
  DR-1358-VT
  DR-1428-VT
  DR-1488-VT
  DR-1559-VT
  DR-1698-VT
  DR-1715-VT
  DR-1778-VT
  DR-1784-VT
  DR-1790-VT
  DR-1951-VT
  DR-1995-VT
  DR-4001-VT
  DR-4022-VT
  DR-4043-VT
  DR-4066-VT
  DR-4120-VT
  DR-4140-VT
  DR-4163-VT
  DR-4178-VT
  DR-4207-VT
  DR-4232-VT
  DR-4330-VT
  DR-4356-VT
  DR-4380-VT
  DR-4445-VT
  DR-4474-VT
  DR-4532-VT
  DR-4621-VT
  DR-4695-VT
  DR-4720-VT
  DR-4744-VT
  DR-4762-VT
  DR-4770-VT
  DR-4810-VT
  DR-4816-VT
  DR-4826-VT

  • Filter Trigger: When the user selects a county of interest, the map zooms to the county. This is accomplished by applying an action to the filter:
    

  • Reset Filters: The user can reset all filters and refresh the dashboard view by clicking the Refresh Filters icon:
    

Interactive Charts

The dashboard contains three column charts that dynamically updated based on selections made using the Category Selector Filters. All of the charts pull data from the FEMA Disaster Declarations by County feature layer.

Disaster By Category

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This column chart displays a count of DisasterType grouped by CNTYNAME from the FEMA Disaster Declarations by County feature layer.

The chart was set up using the following settings:

Disaster Type By Year

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This column chart displays a stacked count of DisasterType grouped by Year from the FEMA Disaster Declarations by County feature layer.

The chart was set up using the following settings:

Disaster Type By Decade

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This column chart displays a stacked count of DisasterType grouped by IndcidentDate from the FEMA Disaster Declarations by County feature layer. The time interval was set to 10 years to reflect disaster type by decade.

The chart was set up using the following settings:

Dynamic Table

The dashboard contains a dynamic table that allows users to review information related to specific counties, disaster types, and declarations. Users can also export a CSV file of the table for use in other applications.

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When the user applies a filter, the table dynamically relevant records with the following attributes:

Table Attributes:

• FEMA_Declaration: Complete FEMA disaster declaration identification number
• DisasterID: FEMA disaster declaration identification number
• IncidentDate: The date the disaster event actually occurred, derived from FEMA's incidentBeginDate.
• Year: The four-digit year (e.g., 2023) the disaster took place, extracted directly from the start date of the incident.
• County: Designated county name
• DisasterType: The general category of the incident (mapped from FEMA's incidentType). Common examples in Vermont include "Flood", "Severe Storm", "Winter Storm", or "Biological" (like COVID-19).
• Total_Cost: The aggregate sum of the projectAmount from FEMA's Public Assistance data, grouped by disaster and county. This represents the total estimated or actual cost of all eligible recovery and repair projects for that specific disaster in that specific county.
• FEMA_Obligated: The aggregate sum of the federalShareObligated field from the Public Assistance data. This represents the actual dollar amount that FEMA approved and committed to pay toward the Total_Cost of those projects.
• Link: A dynamically generated URL (e.g., https://www.fema.gov/disaster/4720) that acts as a direct link to the official FEMA webpage for that specific disaster declaration, where users can find more detailed summaries and news.
• StartDate: A text-formatted version (MM/DD/YYYY) of the incidentBeginDate.
• EndDate: A text-formatted version (MM/DD/YYYY) of the incidentEndDate.

CSV Export: Users can export a CSV or filtered or unfiltered records from the table using the Actions pane, which can be accessing by clicking this icon . Within the Actions pane, users can select Export > Export to CSV.

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Feedback

If you have suggestions for improving this page or need additional functionality, contact John Van Hoesen.