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Tompkins County committee hears pitch for MyCoast photo‑reporting to fill small‑scale flood data gaps
Summary
A summer intern and a New York State Water Resources Institute representative asked Tompkins County officials to promote MyCoast, a photo‑reporting tool that captures local flooding and erosion to supplement large‑scale flood models.
Ally Hartung, a summer intern with the New York State Water Resources Institute, told the Tompkins County Planning, Energy and Environmental Quality Committee on June 9 that MyCoast is an app and web platform that lets residents upload geolocated photos and reports of flooding, shoreline change and storm impacts to build a local archive.
“MyCoast...allows people to share and track photos of changing water levels, shorelines, and hazardous weather impacts,” Hartung said, adding that reports can capture inland and headwater flooding that larger models miss. Kristen Eichat, who represented the institute, told the committee FEMA flood models “really handle main stems. They don't go into the headwaters at all,” and that community photos can help fill historic and small‑scale gaps.
Staff and committee members discussed outreach plans. Eichat said the project is focusing this summer on municipal historians, emergency managers, highway and public‑works departments and the Tompkins County Soil and Water Conservation District to generate photos from past events and to train municipal users. She described examples from other parts of New York, including a municipal emergency operations room that overlays tide gauge readings with MyCoast submissions for real‑time decision making.
Committee members signaled interest in a fuller presentation: the group invited the institute to return for a 15‑minute demo and requested that staff post MyCoast contact links in the meeting minutes. Hartung provided contact information on handouts and said the app and desktop interface permit uploading both recent and historic photos; planning staff said images from the past 20–30 years would be most useful for hazard planning.
The committee did not take formal action; members agreed to consider a follow‑up presentation and to share the MyCoast information with municipal contacts.
