[Qgis-user] offline address geocoding

[David Hiers]

Hi Clifford,

The immediate disaster preparedness benefit of geocoding addresses would be to get the chairman of Beaverton CERT (http://www.beavertonoregon.gov/index.aspx?nid=569)  to quit riding my sorry butt about my current project!

Ya see, CERT members are the first boots on the ground when the professional responders are overwhelmed.   We bridge the gap between the Big Bad Thing and the arrival of the Cavalry. Our current project is to map out all of our members to identify who lives within a particular radius of whom, information from which we'll build localized teams, plan equipment caches, rally points, etc.


As you know, its all about location.  After the quake/tsunami flattens the pacific northwest, we'll be flooded with damage reports, support requests, pop-up shelter locations, etc, all of which will probably be expressed in terms of street address, intersection, or landmark.  To do any sort of automated work with that data (estimate the impact of the cloud of methyl-ethyl-badness from the derailed train car, for instance), first thing I want to do is to geocode everything so I can do math on it.

Of course, there's the whole "predict what the Incident Commander will want years in advance" aspect to this, too.  There's just no telling what the local IC is going to come up with once the ball gets rolling.  Every IC has a boss, so this bit of mystery goes all the up to DHS/FEMA.

Anyway, whatever CERT does, we generally plan to do it without any supporting infrastructure such as commercial power, internet, etc.  If it can't be done it with a ham radio and laptop from the front seat of my corolla, its probably not going to happen in time to matter.

I'm just getting rolling on this, and if there is a way to make something harder that it should  be, I'm just the guy to find it.  If I'm twisting at windmills here, let me know :)


Cheers!


David







________________________________
 From: Clifford Snow <clifford at snowandsnow.us>
To: David Hiers <davidhiers7836 at yahoo.com> 
Cc: "qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org" <qgis-user at lists.osgeo.org> 
Sent: Sunday, January 5, 2014 11:58 AM
Subject: Re: [Qgis-user] offline address geocoding
 


David,
I'm a volunteer contributor to OpenStreetMap. A few of us are working to import addresses into OSM. (Although not all countries have addresses.) I had not considered addresses useful for disaster preparedness. Can you help me understand how address help? 

Thanks,
Clifford



On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 11:41 AM, David Hiers <davidhiers7836 at yahoo.com> wrote:

Hello,
>I am seeking a GIS app to use for a disaster preparedness group.  As such, I need full functionality when the Internet is not available.
>
>
> The weak spot for most GIS apps seems to be gecoding street addresses to coordinates (lat/log, UTM, etc).  Many apps seem to wind up referencing the geocoding services of google or yahoo instead of doing the work locally.
>
>
>Provided the correct data files (TIGER, etc), can QGIS be used to geocode street addresses without Internet access?
>
>
>
>
>Best Regards,
>
>
>David
>
>
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-- 

Clifford

OpenStreetMap: Maps with a human touch
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