Know Your Zone can be used to share evacuation zone information established to help residents evacuate when an emergency or incident occurs.
In this topic, you'll learn how to configure the Know Your Zone solution to meet specific needs of your organization.
Organize Data
The Know Your Zone solution uses pre-established zones created by officials responsible for evacuation plans within communities. We support two types of visualization for pre-established zones one for coastal communities that use the Zone A through Zone F categorization and pre-established evacuation zones are more common in wildfire-prone areas. Before you begin configuring the solution, determine the zone pattern to suit your community's needs.
- Zones (Evacuation Zone Symbology) - Pre-established zones displayed on the map using unique colors, often in coastal and flood-prone communities, indicating the highest-to-lowest risk of storm surge or flooding based on a Zone A through Zone F categorization. The symbology of the map stays the same during non-emergency or emergency conditions; only the evacuation notice information associated with the map changes.
- Zones (Evacuation Type Symbology) - Pre-established zones displayed on the map using a transparent fill and black outline during non-emergency conditions. The zone symbology will change during an emergency when the Evacuation Type field value is updated using different evacuation types, such as a Mandatory Evacuation Order, to determine symbology. This is a pattern more commonly seen in areas prone to wildfire or nuclear emergency planning zones. The symbology and evacuation notice information of the map changes during an active emergency.
The zone data should have the following required fields and values:
| Field Alias | Description | Zone field requirements |
|---|---|---|
Evacuation Zone | The level of the evacuation zone, typically Zone A through Zone F. | Required for Zones (Evacuation Zone Symbology). |
Evacuation Type | The notices and evacuation information assigned to the zone. Set this field value to No Evacuation Order by default. | Required for Zones (Evacuation Type Symbology). |
Zone Name | The public name of the evacuation zone. | Required for Zones (Evacuation Type Symbology). |
Publicly Visible | Whether the zone is a publicly visible. Set this field value to Yes. | Required for both types of zones. |
Pre-established Zone | Whether the zone is a pre-established zone. Set this field value to Yes. | Required for both types of zones. |
Tip:
Pre-established zones created by officials for evacuation planning are often derived from storm surge models or mountain topography. Therefore, the resulting zone polygon often has a large number of vertices in the data. Prior to loading zone data, ensure app performance by simplifying polygon data and reducing the number of vertices where appropriate without compromising the boundary and shape of the zones.
Tip:
To match the layer schema, you can either download the provided NoticesAndEvacuations layer and modify your data's fields and domains before loading, or you can calculate fields to match after appending your data in the following Load data from a shapefile or file geodatabase section.
Load data from a shapefile or file geodatabase
If you have evacuation zones that you would like to use in the Know Your Zone solution, you will need to load your data into the Notices and Evacuations layer schema provided with the app.
To load data from a shapefile or file geodatabase, complete the following steps:
- Create a .zip file of your shapefile or file geodatabase.
- Sign in to your ArcGIS organization and browse to the Notices and Evacuations feature layer that you want to populate.
- From the item page, click Update Data.
- Follow the steps in the Update data wizard to load your data.
Tip:
For more information about uploading data, see Manage hosted feature layers—Append data to layers.
Note:
When you deploy the Emergency Management Operations solution and the Know Your Zone solution and both solutions are owned by the same user, the Notices and Evacuations layer is shared between both solutions. This allows the emergency evacuation status to be updated using the Emergency Information Manager app. The updates are visible in Know Your Zone and Emergency Management Operations solution.
Update map
When evacuation notices are necessary, emergency managers can configure Know Your Zone to identify zones that are most at risk. Evacuation status can be enabled on each high-risk zone. This information can be shared with the media and residents so they will know what zone they are in and when to evacuate.
To update the map, complete the following steps:
- Verify that you are signed in to your ArcGIS organization and browse to the Know Your Zone map.
- From the item page, click Open in Map Viewer.
- Choose the layer to remove from the Layers panel, click the Options button.
- Click the remaining layer and click the Options button.
- Click Rename, type an appropriate name for the zones, and click OK.
For example, Know Your Zone, Pre-established Evacuation Zones, Hurricane Evacuation Zones, or another incident specific zone name. This layer name will be visible in the legend of the Know Your Zone app.
- Click the Save and Open button, then click the Save button to save the map.
Tip:
Remove the Zones (Evacuation Type Symbology) layer or Zones (Evacuation Zone Symbology) based on the symbology you would like to display for your community.
Tip:
If you used Zones (Evacuation Zone Symbology) in you map then you may want to optimize drawing of complex lines and polygons and publish hosted tiles from hosted features on the Notices and Evacutions_KnowYourZone layer view if you anticipate a large demand on the app.