Monday, November 9. 2009

Examiner Examines Flood Maps

The Kansas City science editor, Charles Spenser walking through how citizens in Kansas and Missouri can find and use FEMA flood maps. In the first article in the series he reviewed the challenges of viewing FIRM maps and creating a FIRMETTE (free) on the FEMA website. I agree the MSC Viewer does not feel modern.

But although these maps are full of information, the process of viewing it is not all that user-friendly. First of all, the map covers a much larger area than your neighborhood, so you must pan and zoom to reach street level. Every time you do that, or click on any other tool, the image reloads at a frustratingly slow rate (even with a fast internet connection). Another problem is that you lose the map legend as you zoom. If you don’t know, or remember, what all of the map labels and symbols mean, you have to pan back to the legend, which involves more image reloads.

In the second he give some alternative locations to access the data more easily: the state site for Missouri and several county sites for Kansas.

Next up: how to figure out what the maps mean.