GISCorps: Hurricane Katrina |
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The Church Map Story: Saturday, September 17, 2005 |
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The Church Map Story – Saturday September 17, 2005 Saturday afternoon about an hour after FEMA first came to the Depot, Judy Breeland arrived. She commanded everyone’s attention and began addressing the FEMA guys while Katie and I listened. FEMA explained that their mission was “Community Relations”. Their plan was to go door to door to notify everyone in the county where they could get assistance. They were ready to go first thing in the morning. But Judy explained to them that in Mississippi no one would be home Sunday morning because they would all be in church. Katie and I immediately realized we needed to make a church map! That afternoon we gathered up local newspapers lying around the Depot. We looked up all the church directories. I began making a database in ACCESS. We located the little Wiggins telephone book and started cross referencing the church listings with our database. When we finished we had over 70 church records. Katie worked on the geocoding and mapping the Stone County churches. The next morning when we saw Judy we asked her “why were there so many churches in Wiggins?” She told us the reason there were so many was that every time there was a disagreement, they started up a new church. Sounds just like my home town of Lubbock, Texas. Sunday morning when FEMA arrived, the church map was ready. That morning Katie and I sent FEMA to church. They were able to visit 17 churches in the town of Wiggins while they were in service. FEMA was able to notify the people of Stone County that they were there to assist them. The church map was an incredibly successful GIS activity that helped connect FEMA to the community of Wiggins. |