Welcome to the National Capital Region HAZUS User Group

      The National Capital Region (NCR) HAZUS-MH User Group is intended to be a technical and social organization that can provide the HAZUS community with the support and expertise to address emerging multi-hazard modeling with an emphasis on Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP), Manmade Disasters, National Response and Incident Management, and Natural Disaster Planning. The Washington Metro DC area is home to a significant number of experts in the areas of infrastructure protection, blast, WMD, terrorist response, emergency operations and disaster recovery. This expertise will be invaluable as future versions of HAZUS-MH incorporates additional modules and features such as blast rapid screening, WMD plume and dispersion analysis, urban fire, wildfire conflagration, and rubble pile calculation.

      With the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, several federal agencies have been incorporated into the DHS that were historically focused on either natural disaster or manmade disaster. The DHS philosophy of an multi-hazards approach offers an opportunity to assist in the integration and dissemination of information within the GIS community that brings together the policy, modeling, and technical architectures that are evolving to meet the new agency objectives and requirements.

      HAZUS-MH will provide local communities with an unprecedented ability to evaluate loss and impacts from both natural and manmade disasters and provide the geospatial information for local and national response and incident management. The fidelity of the HAZUS-MH data sets, combined with the increasing capability of commercial imagery and advanced models will enable the GIS community to provide very precise and accurate analysis and mapping products. However, the unrestricted release of HAZUS-MH data and associated products can also be used in targeting and effects analysis and information about techniques, modeling, analysis, and capabilities will likely require some level of security protection of the underlying data and technical expertise used to model blast and WMD type events. The NCR HUG experts can provide input on policy that ensures information can be properly accessed, acquired, and protected in both the current working architectures and future architectures.