County joins pilot program for emergencies

Lee County Emergency Management has been selected to participate in a pilot program for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (S&T) Science and Technology Directorate’s Community Lifeline Status System or CLSS, a tool designed to accentuate emergency management and disaster response.
As one of eight agencies participating in the nationwide initiative, the county will be at the forefront of implementing a data-driven approach to assessing and prioritizing critical community infrastructure during emergencies. The CLSS enables emergency managers to quickly evaluate the status of essential services and infrastructure, facilitating rapid decision-making during complex incident responses.
The county noted that its participation in the program supports several initiatives within the ResilientLee Plan, which was developed after Hurricane Ian.
“Having a mechanism to capture data and communicate the status of critical systems and infrastructure is important during disasters,” Lee County Emergency Management Chief John Schultz said. “We’re excited to be able to work closely with DHS on this new initiative and further advance issues raised in the ResilientLee Plan.”
Key features of the CLSS that the county will leverage will include:
– Rapid impact assessments of community lifelines
– Customizable reporting capabilities
– Seamless data sharing across jurisdictions
– Integration with existing Esri ArcGIS frameworks
The pilot program is part of a broader S&T initiative to modernize emergency response systems, with the goal of helping agencies aggregate, analyze and operationalize critical incident data more effectively.
For more information about the CLSS, visit https://clss-cusec.hub.arcgis.com.