Last month, SIPA GovGrants recipient Pikes Peak Regional Office of Emergency Management (PPROEM) was featured in a Civic Launchpad webinar hosted by the Colorado Smart Cities Alliance. PPROEM Executive Director Andrew Notbohm shared details on how the SIPA GovGrants program has allowed them to leverage innovative technology to redefine public safety for Colorado’s most populous county.
New Challenges for Public Safety
Notbohm explained that public safety challenges are changing. Communities are no longer facing just traditional wildfires, but "extreme wind-driven fires in the built environment," such as Colorado’s Marshall fire in 2021. With one of the largest Wildland-Urban Interfaces (WUI) in the Intermountain West, the Pikes Peak region faces the immense challenge of how to manage sudden evacuations for tens of thousands of people with limited notice.
Faced with this new reality, PPROEM requested funding from SIPA GovGrants to help implement a powerful new tool for advanced evacuation planning. The software from Ladris provides a digital twin of the Colorado Springs region and El Paso County, allowing planners to simulate evacuations by modeling how traffic might flow during an emergency. It also identifies potential traffic bottlenecks and helps planners optimize evacuation routes by comparing management strategies to reduce evacuation times and improve overall outcomes.
Emergency Management Coordinator Sara Fant provided a demo of the software, showing how it models evacuation times. The data from the new models is already challenging old assumptions. For example, a simulation for Monument, Colorado showed that directing evacuees to I-25 reduced evacuation time by nearly 3 hours compared with directing the same group to Highway 83, a smaller two-lane road nearby. This data-driven approach provides critical decision support for first responders and validates the experience of incident commanders with clear data.
Continuous Improvement Powered by SIPA GovGrants
According to Deputy Director Tobi Blanchard, PPROEM's Advanced Evacuation Plan was founded on the concept of continuous improvement, and that's where they intend to go from here. The next steps for the project involve thoroughly validating the evacuation plans and scenarios supported by the Ladris software. They will need to walk through various checklists and other guidance using simulated scenarios to ensure that all of the measures are sound. PPROEM has begun this validation and improvement process by hosting multiple training sessions and conducting a tabletop exercise which emphasized activation of plan phases and responsibilities of partners.
The SIPA GovGrants program is proud to champion PPROEM's innovative and pro-active work. Their program is an example of how forward-thinking public servants can combine smart planning with cutting-edge technology to build more resilient communities and protect Coloradans. Their leadership in emergency management and public safety will offer valuable lessons and opportunities for their peers across Colorado and beyond.