Digital Technology-Enhanced Collection of Perishable Hurricane Damage

Principal Investigator: David Frost CEE/GT
Co-PI's: Hermann Fritz CEE/GT, Glenn Rix CEE/GT, Alan Erera ISyE/GT

Post disaster reconnaissance following major natural and man-induced events has yielded significant new insights into both the characteristics of the events as well as the performance of man-made infrastructure subjected to these catastrophic events.

In response to the natural disasters of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a Special Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER) to researchers at Georgia Tech, supplementing a larger NSF-funded project at Georgia Tech.

Organized into three field survey teams, researchers are working to develop a baseline condition model for a major port facility subjected to a catastrophic event. Additional objectives of the data reconnaissance focus on evaluating multi-scale geographic variations in infrastructure damage as a result of hurricane storm surge and wind. Such rich data sets can have significant implications for studies, not only into future hurricane preparedness, but also into the consequences of other catastrophic natural events such earthquakes and tsunamis, as well as man-induced (terrorist) disasters.