FEMA Receives Prestigious Making a Difference Award; Thursday, 14 March 2013. Award given at Esri Federal GIS Conference for Superstorm Sandy Response. [FEMA is the user of the ESRI technology.] According the article in Surveyer,

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) efforts to assist after the destruction of Superstorm Sandy—including its first-of-its-kind mapping platform, the GeoPlatform—were recognized by Esri at its annual Federal GIS Conference held in Washington, DC, February 25–27. The company honored FEMA with its prestigious Making a Difference Award, which recognizes organizations doing exemplary work using geospatial technology. * * *

A few of the powerful applications included the following:

• Check Your Home—People could click on the online map to see how many homes, neighborhoods, and communities were impacted. The application provided easy access to imagery FEMA collected immediately after the storm.
• Modeling Task Force Map—This map predicted flood areas that would incur damage. Desktop experts ran sophisticated models and published them to the web with updates happening almost daily
• Advisory Base Flood Elevation (ABFE)—FEMA issued ABFE maps post-Sandy for the recovery work. As rebuilding efforts take place, the maps and related information help people stay current with new floodplain and insurance guidelines.

Related article

• FEMA Receives Prestigious Making a Difference Award (prnewswire.com)