OnTheMap for Emergency Management - Help

OnTheMap for Emergency Management provides rapid access to labor market information for local areas, affected by emergency events such as hurricanes, tornados, floods, earthquakes or fires. Currently limited to hurricanes, the application will provide an easy-to-use tool that provides a live feed from the National Hurricane Center. When a storm's leading winds make landfall, in the U.S., the application will allow users to view the characteristics of the local workforce, such as the affected industries, the ages of workers and workers' earnings with a simple click of the link. See the OnTheMap for Emergency Management 1-Pager for more information.

Please visit OnTheMap for more information.

The employment data used in this application are a product of the unique Local Employment Dynamics (LED) partnership between state labor market information agencies and the Census Bureau. Details about the LED Partnership can be found here.

Download Getting Started With OnTheMap for Emergency Management, which provides an overview of how to use the application.

• Base Map - The geographic reference map, within the map viewer, displaying the U.S. national and state political boundaries, water features, and major cities. The hurricane wind swath and overlay are visible on top of the base map.


• GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) - GMT, also commonly known as Universal Time (UT), is five hours ahead of the US Eastern Standard Time (EST) during standard period, and four hours ahead during daylight-saving period.


• Jobs by Age - A count of all primary jobs, by worker age, within the total hurricane wind swath area. The categories are Age 30 or younger, Age 31 to 54 years, and Age 55 or older.


• Jobs by Earnings - A count of all primary jobs, by worker earnings, within the total hurricane wind swath area. The categories are $1,250 per month or less, $1,251 to $3,333 per month, and More than $3,333 per month. Jobs by Location (State, County, Place) - A count of all primary jobs within each state, county, or place that is also located within the hurricane wind swath.


• Jobs by NAICS Industry Sector - A count of all primary jobs, by 2-digit NAICS Industry Sector, within the total hurricane wind swath area. Details about North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) can be found here.


• Job Density Overlay - The job density overlay is represented by the blue color-shaded areas within the hurricane wind swath. Darker areas represent higher concentrations of jobs per square mile.


• Landfalling Hurricane - Hurricane who's leading wind touches or intersects with U.S. based land areas.


• Map Viewer - Graphical navigable reference map on the home and storm dashboard pages displaying current and historical location of the hurricane and the density of jobs within the land-based portion of the wind swath area.


• Storm Code - The sequential numbering of tropical cyclones for a specific forecast basin according to when the first advisory is issued by the National Hurricane Center.


• Storm Dashboard - The storm dashboard, is the webpage which is opened after selecting a storm on the Home page, and includes a map, tabular report, and data viewing and download tools.


• Storm List - The Storm List on the right hand side of the Home page displays a list of current and historical storms available for selection and viewing.


• Storm Name - Refers to the name given to each tropical cyclone (or hurricane) for which the National Hurricane Center provides forecast advisories. Details about NHC naming conventions for tropical storms can be found here.


• Storm Type - Category given to a tropical cyclone according to present intensity. The categories 1-5 are based on the Saffir Simpson Hurricane Scale rating. Details about the Saffir Simpson Hurricane Scale can be found here.


• Tabular Report - Located in the upper-right portion of the storm dashboard, displays job totals, within the hurricane wind swath, for various geographic or characteristic categories.


• Total Jobs - A count of all primary jobs in 2008 within the hurricane wind swath area.

Wind Swath - Areal designation representing how the size of the storm has changed and the areas potentially affected so far by sustained winds of tropical storm force (34 Knot), 50 knot and hurricane force (64 knot) from a tropical cyclone. Also referred to as the cumulative wind swath or wind history, these data are based on the wind radii contained in the Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecasting (ATCF) system's working best track. The "working best track" represents the forecasters' best estimates of the location, intensity, and size of a tropical cyclone while the cyclone is ongoing. After the life cycle is complete, forecasters prepare a "final best track", using data that might not have been available operationally, and it is the final best track that represents NHC's official historical record for the cyclone. See the National Hurricane Center definition for more information.

• Jobs Data - The employment data is derived from Unemployment Insurance Wage Records reported by employers and maintained by each state for the purpose of administering its unemployment insurance system. The states assign employer locations, while age, earnings, and industry profiles are compiled by the Census Bureau from a state's records and are supplemented with other Census Bureau source data. Final compilations and confidentiality protection are performed by the Census Bureau. Additional details about the employment data production process can be found here.


• Hurricane Data -The hurricane data used in OnTheMap for Emergency Management is supplied in real time feeds by the National Hurricane Center.
  
  The feeds, provided in Really Simple Syndication (RSS) format, are updated every 4-6 hours and include:
  • The latest public advisory for the storm which includes meteorological characteristics, location, wind speed, and storm direction;
  • Detailed GIS data including current and forecast storm track, cumulative wind swath (or wind history), wind speed probabilities, and uncertainty cone. Details about these data can be found here http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gis.
  
  Further details about the RSS feeds provided by NWS are available here.
  
  The hurricane wind swath is the area depicted by the orange outline on the map. Often referred to as the 'cumulative wind swath' or wind history, the wind swath, is defined by the National Hurricane Center, on an ongoing basis, throughout a storm's lifecycle and describes how the size of the storm has changed and the areas potentially affected so far by sustained hurricane force winds. The National Hurricane Center definition can be found here.


• Base Map -The base map and the majority of geography displayed in OnTheMap for Emergency Management use the U.S. Census Bureau's public-use TIGER/Line geography product. Version 4 of OnTheMap makes use of the 2008 TIGER/Line Shapefiles. Further information about the TIGER/Line data, including downloadable shapefiles, can be found here.
  
  OnTheMap for Emergency Management uses the "USA Contiguous Albers Equal Area Conic" projection for the 48 contiguous states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The "Alaska Albers Equal Area Conic" projection is used for Alaska. And the "Hawaii Albers Equal Area Conic" projection is used for Hawaii.

Q: What is OnTheMap for Emergency Management?
A: OnTheMap for Emergency Management provides rapid access to labor market information for local areas, affected by emergency events such as hurricanes, tornados, floods, earthquakes or fires. Currently limited to hurricanes, the application will provide an easy-to-use tool that provides a live feed from the National Hurricane Center. When a storm's leading winds make landfall, in the U.S., the application will allow users to view the characteristics of the local workforce, such as the affected industries, the ages of workers and workers' earnings with a simple click of the link.

Q: What is wind swath? What does it cover?
A: The cumulative wind swath is defined by the National Weather Service, on an ongoing basis, throughout a storm's lifecycle and describes how the size of the storm has changed and the areas potentially affected so far by sustained winds of tropical storm force (34 Knot), 50 knot and hurricane force (64 knot) from a tropical cyclone. These data are based on the wind radii contained in the Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecasting (ATCF) system's working best track. The "working best track" represents the forecasters' best estimates of the location, intensity, and size of a tropical cyclone while the cyclone is ongoing. After the life cycle is complete, forecasters prepare a "final best track", using data that might not have been available operationally, and it is the final best track that represents NHC's official historical record for the cyclone.

Q: What are "jobs" in the application?
A: OnTheMap for Emergency Management reports 2008 Primary Job figures. The LED Partnership defines a 'primary job' as the one job for each worker that provides the most earnings. By analyzing primary jobs, you are seeing "one job per worker". The LED Partnership bases its job figures upon several core datasets provided by our state partners. These include Unemployment Insurance wage data and the Quarterly Census of Employment in Wages. Coverage under these datasets currently excludes several groups of workers such as:

• Federal Civilian Employees
• Uniformed Military
• Self-Employed Workers

Projects are currently underway to add Federal Civilian Employees and Self-Employed Workers to the LED data infrastructure. For further updates on these projects, please visit the LED homepage.

Q: Can historical storm information be added?
A: Not at this time, but possibly in the future.

Q: When will tornadoes and other natural disasters be added to the application?
A: Other natural disaster related data will be added to the application based on the availability of data and its compatibility with the system.

Q: Can I get more detailed data than what OnTheMap for Emergency Management provides?
A: Yes. Many more layers of geographic details are available by using the main OnTheMap application.

Q: OnTheMap for Emergency Management provides jobs data from 2008. Are there more recent jobs data available?
A: The most recent available jobs data from OnTheMap is 2008. Jobs data for 2009 will be available in December 2010 when the new version of OnTheMap will be released. Currently, 2009 jobs data are available for limited geographies (states, counties, metropolitan areas, and Workforce Investment Areas only) through the Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI).

Q: How do I send suggestions and comments about the application?
A: Please send an email to CES.Local.Employment.Dynamics@census.gov

2. There is currently a bug that affects the initial map extent displayed after selecting a storm from the storm list on the entry page. In certain cases, the initial map displayed is not centered on the storm location but on North America or locations within the continental U.S. instead.

This is a known bug which is planned to be fixed in a future release. Until then, users can use the map's navigation controls to adjust the map location and scale to the area around the storm of interest. For details on how to use the navigation controls, please see the Getting Started Guide