Special Topics, Week 6: Network Analysis - Analyze Week - Hurricane Evac. & Supply Routes

During the second week of our Network Analysis project, we created driving routes.  There were three different scenarios that needed to be planned out.  Tampa Bay is about to be hit by a hurricane and there is one hospital (Tampa General) that falls within the flood zone.  The patients at this hospital will need to be evacuated and moved to hospitals on higher ground - St. Joseph's and Memorial.  Using the Network Analysis toolbar, routes were established from Tampa General to St. Joseph's and Memorial using only roads that will most likely be open and won't be flooded.  

The second scenario is that the U.S. Army National Guard needs to distribute supplies to three local shelters.  They will be departing from the armory and traveling to Tampa Bay Blvd Elementary, Middleton High School and Oak Park Elementary to deliver supplies.  Routes needed to be created from the armory to these locations.  The same methods were used as the patient evacuation routes.  

The third and final scenario was informing the public.  Areas needed to be created that were within a certain distance of a shelter.  The color coded sections on this map, allow those people to see which shelter is closest to them.  People living within the blue shaded region should head to the Tampa Bay Blvd Elementary shelter.  People within the pink area should head to the Middleton High School and people located within the green area should head to the Oak Park Elementary School.

It was an interesting week of work and I hit a snag when trying to create the color-coded polygon's.  I figured out that last week, during prepare week, I used incorrect equations when calculating driving times and distances of the streets.  I had to go back and fix that and re-create a new network dataset.  Once I realized my mistake, figured out how to fix it and created a deliverable that I needed, I was happy.  I actually enjoyed the troubleshooting (after the fact).

This is a map of patient evacuation routes, supply routes and location of nearest shelter.