Eyes in the Sky, Boots on the Ground: Three Years of NASA DRCS Support of State and Local Response

NASA's Disasters Response Coordination System (DRCS) fosters integrated relationships with disaster science and technology initiatives, tapping into the agency's end-to-end Earth science capabilities and unifying disaster science expertise across NASA centers. These capabilities can provide situational awareness and data-driven decision support over large areas that may be too remote, inaccessible, or extensive to survey through traditional methods. Responding to requests from international, federal, state, local, tribal, territorial, and voluntary disaster response agencies all of NASA's data products have free and open access through the NASA Disasters Portal ArcGIS Online website. Recent disaster responses have shown both immense opportunities for leveraging new technology and data sources while also highlighting critical gaps where the organic connections between the research community, data providers, and the end users' practical needs don't always align. After roughly three years of deploying the system to support disaster response, the team has observed trends and themes that have been part of the continuous improvement, innovation, and development of value-add products to better serve the needs of emergency managers. This presentation will highlight how these lessons observed are being integrated into lessons learned and will invite participants to be part of that process in blue-skies through the promotion of joint planning, training, and exercises.