Ordnance Survey’s Post

Transcript

If this World War 2 bomb had exploded, then the homes the lives of close to 10,000 residents in Plymouth would have been at risk 80 years ago. Plymouth and its Royal Navy base at Davenport was a significant target for German bombers. Their payloads didn't always explode. But how the biggest peacetime evacuation of residents and the explosive now exposed in a city back garden, how that was safely detonated at sea, that was down to outstanding planning and execution by military, civil and emergency services. So mapping is incredibly important to us. The key to it though is making sure that you've got the information that is up to date, accurate. And in this circumstance, particularly with the combination of our 3D mapping and ordinance survey, we've never. Before we had that incredible detail down to the centimetre. Right in harm's way were the military, of course, relying on specific mapping skills. We hold a number of people at readiness connected in across the government, across the MOD and across the crisis response agencies. So if any event like this happens, we're able to quickly deploy people forward to support those crisis response agencies, bomb disposal experts, if they're going into a scenario. And we're able to provide them with a visual representation of that, whether it be via the Lidar scans, photography, drone footage, 3D models that are able to produce. They can really understand that area. That makes it a hell of a lot safer for everybody involved. So the ability to have that single version of the truth, that digital twin that we can all rely on, that really allows them to to make those key decisions without having to actually be in somewhere that might be a bit of a risk. You then might have a partner agency from the Red Cross. You could say, well, actually, yeah, we know there's 20 people in that old people saying that we can't move. They wanted to take large vehicles in. They could say, well, actually we've got a Telegraph pole with the cables as you can see on the screen there that will give. Someone a really good understanding of the difficulties of getting into that location so you can make your accurate decisions based on the options that you've you've got. Continued reconnaissance of the bomb site demanded that the exclusion cordon would grow. More people evacuated, mapping again, keeping senior command decisions on point. We haven't just got a visualization tool, but we've actually got data included into it. And we can text that down via phone, via tablet. We can send that out to officers who are down there and they can see exactly which buildings that cordon runs through, what that that plot looks like, what our radius look like for evacuations. So it, it gives you all the the aspects of height. And certainly with a blast in this circumstance, what's the effect going to be on a block of flats nearby? You get a much better idea than perhaps you would on a more simple 2D map of the area. It seems like an extremely complex piece, and it was. But the more accurate your information is, the more accurate intelligence is, then the more confident you can be that you're making the right decisions. Orders came to move the 400 lbs of 80 year old high explosive very cautiously by Rd. Geospatial experts would help plan the exit route. So we know the size of the vehicle, we know the size of the device, we know the size of the roads. So this one in particular has got 150 meter buffer applied to the route as well, taking into account any other information throughout the area, whether that's population data, critical key buildings along the route such as the schools, hospitals, etcetera. And then we can use that information and put it into our systems to effectively give options for the route. The Royal Navy would then do the necessary towed out to sea divers would attach charges and the bomb was exploded safely underwater.