Today, and When Disaster Strikes
Even though emergency response is not the primary goal of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Services Center, the products and services originally developed for state and local coastal programs can play an important role in a disaster recovery program. The following outlines some of the Center’s efforts during the eventful hurricane season of 2005.
Coordination
In all phases of a disaster, officials require quick and easy access to pertinent information, and the fewer places they have to go to get that information the better. Well-established partnerships with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Geological Survey allowed Center data and assistance to go rapidly to the people who needed it most.
An agreement with the NOAA National Weather Service’s National Hurricane Center also provided for the deployment of a modeling and geographic information system expert from the Coastal Services Center to help integrate storm surge and other data sets into easy-to-use information products.
“Because of our previous working relationships with these agencies, we understood each other’s capabilities and needs,” says Steve Raber, remote sensing manager for the Coastal Services Center. “Our partnerships with the private sector and other organizations also proved helpful, since we were able to coordinate the delivery of additional data and products from other sources that might have otherwise been inaccessible.”
Remotely Sensed Imagery
The NOAA Coastal Services Center’s Coastal Change Analysis Program is working to complete a national baseline of coastal land cover and change data. As a result, staff members were working in the Gulf region prior to Hurricane Katrina. This work put the Center in an ideal position to perform quick analyses of initial hurricane impacts. Maps were developed to help officials see the impacted areas, visualize debris accumulations, and study impacts to wetland areas.
Flood Maps
An ongoing project with the National Weather Service is focused on improving flood-prediction capabilities. This effort brought helpful information to emergency preparedness officials, including forecasts and near-real-time information about rain, winds, and flooding. Officials used this information to create maps that were used to determine the number of critical facilities impacted by the storms and the demographics of the impacted regions.
People involved in rebuilding communities continue to use the information to see how the landscape reacted and changed in response to the flooding and strong winds, and to help them make smart rebuilding decisions. The flood-map team is using remotely sensed maps and other information-gathering devices to recalibrate the flood prediction models and determine ways to improve the predictive process.
Long-Term Recovery
Many of the products and services that proved to be helpful after the storm are also playing a role in the long-term recovery effort. The Center is working with the rest of NOAA to bring products and services to those concerned with the rebuilding effort.
These efforts include the creation of partnerships developed to leverage resources and expertise, technical support to guide social and economic recovery, improved storm surge inundation modeling and maps, and other products that help officials predict, prepare for, and recover from natural disasters.
For more information about the Center’s products and services, visit the organization’s Web site at www.csc.noaa.gov, or e-mail Donna.Mccaskill@noaa.gov.
