Taking on the challenge of mapping disaster areas during a national emergency

For the first time in history, all 50 states were declared federal disaster areas due to COVID-19. At the same time, hurricanes, floods, wildfires and winter storms continued to hit communities already dealing with the pandemic.

Communities were overwhelmed and so was the U.S. Census Bureau's award-winning OnTheMap for Emergency Management data tool, https://onthemap.ces.census.gov/em/.

As each state becomes a disaster or emergency declaration area, real-time data on hurricanes, floods, wildfires and winter storms were updated but drowned out by the nationwide swath of COVID-19 disaster areas....