Utah Geospatial Emergency Management (UGEM) is a committee of the Utah Geographic Information Council (UGIC). Its members are GIS professionals from local, county, state, and private organizations who support emergency management. GIS means geographic information systems: the maps, data, and software that show where things are.

The UGEM Hub is the committee’s website. It is an ArcGIS Hub site hosted by the Utah Department of Public Safety. It holds response resources, a data catalog, training, events, and recordings of the quarterly meetings. As the board’s Technology Coordinator, I manage the site.

Emma Hollinger (Utah DPS) and the other board members built out the Hub’s pages and resources. My part in fall 2026 was a repair and cleanup pass on that work.

The starting point

A review of the site in July 2026 found these problems:

  • Eight resource cards said “Content coming soon.”
  • Some map layers had the wrong labels.
  • Some links in the page footer did not work.

All 41 data links in that review worked.

What changed

Most of the cleanup was done from October 24 to November 2, 2026.

  • The Home page and 23 other pages now use one design.
  • Six empty topics now have guides: evacuation areas, hazard analysis, fire training and GISS (the GIS specialist role on a wildfire), naming conventions, ArcGIS Online, and drones.
  • General Resources went from 8 “coming soon” cards to 23 working cards.
  • The Training page keeps all 13 course rows and now has a card layout for phones.
  • A new Imagery Resources page lists 8 imagery sources. Kate Smith (City of American Fork), the Vice-Chair, wrote the source document. Holly Strand (Utah DPS) compiled it.
  • The Home page shows four featured applications with screenshots, and a list of upcoming events.
  • A bar now keeps the Hub toolbar from covering page content.

How it was checked

  • 339 card links, with 212 different destinations, were reviewed. 12 were fixed.
  • 10 images with generic alternative text got real descriptions. Alternative text is what a screen reader reads aloud for an image.
  • The Home page was checked at seven screen widths, from 320 to 1,440 pixels, with no sideways scrolling. The page header was checked on the 23 other pages at five widths.
  • The Home page scores 100 on the Lighthouse automated accessibility check, up from 99.

An automated score is not a full accessibility test. The pages have not been tested with a screen reader or with browser zoom.

The board

UGEM is run by a volunteer board. In November 2026 the board is Julia Surkis (Chair, Utah Division of Emergency Management), Kate Smith (Vice-Chair, City of American Fork), Savannah Mailloux (Training Coordinator, Unified Fire Authority), Braden Norris (Outreach Liaison, Utah Division of Emergency Management), Emma Hollinger (Utah DPS), and me.

Visit the site: UGEM Hub. Read about my other work with UGEM on the Involvement page.