Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico, wind, reconnaissance, hurricanes
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Description:
The active 2017 hurricane season included multiple hurricanes impacting the United States from its mainland to the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Hurricane Irma left a path of destruction across the Caribbean, including landfall on September 6, 2017 in the British Virgin Islands, just east of the US Virgin Islands, as a Category 5 hurricane. The hurricane inflicted minor impacts on Puerto Rico as it continued through the Caribbean towards Florida. Shortly thereafter, Maria made its way through the caribbean, eventually making its US landfall on September 20 near Yabucoa, Puerto Rico as a strong Category 4 hurricane, causing considerable damage to large portions of the island from wind, storm surge and inland flooding hazards.
As part of a wider coordinated effort to conduct assess damage resulting from this sequence of hurricanes, a regional node was established in Puerto Rico to organize local reconnaissance efforts across the island between October 6 and November 18, 2017. Separate efforts were organized for Florida as well as the US Virgin Islands, each curated as separate DesignSafe projects (PRJ-1828 and PRJ-2685, respectively). Though personally impacted by the hurricane, the majority of assessments were conducted by Puerto Rican researchers over a number of weeks following the hurricane. Additional support was provided by a mainland US team, who joined these efforts for a short campaign (Nov. 15-18, 2017). The Investigations employed primarily door-to-door Damage Assessments to document the performance of buildings, using a customized Fulcrum smartphone application. At select locations, the mainland US team executed unmanned aerial surveys (UAS). Following the reconnaissance effort, a team of student Data Librarians were trained to execute a comprehensive Data Enrichment and Quality Control (DE/QC) process.
Mission | Local Puerto Rican Team + Mainland US Support Team
Cite This Data:
Aponte, L., D. Prevatt, D. Roueche, T. Kijewski-Correa, P. Chardon, M. Cortes, O. Lafontaine, Y. Li, C. López del Puerto, A. Mercado, A. Morales, S. Montalvo-Perez, J. Munoz, K. Perry (2020). "Local Puerto Rican Team + Mainland US Support Team", in RAPID: A Coordinated Structural Engineering Response to Hurricane Irma (and Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico). DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-fa0b-4p07
Though personally impacted by the hurricane, the majority of damage assessments were conducted by Puerto Rican researchers (faculty and students) over a number of weeks following the hurricane. In this brief mission, local researchers were joined by a Mainland US Support Team. The joint effort included door-to-door Damage Assessments to document the performance of buildings, using a customized Fulcrum smartphone application, as well as unmanned aerial surveys (UAS).
Damage Assessments were conducted door-to-door for a detailed building classification and evaluation of condition/component damage levels. These were recorded using the Fulcrum smartphone data collection application, acquiring geotagged photos from the surveyor’s mobile device. The App supported in-line capture of geotagged photos and audio recordings directly from the user’s mobile device, including all device-supplied metadata (date, time, etc.). Structural classes include buildings as well as other infrastructure.
Small Unmanned Aerial Surveys (UAS) were conducted by a professional contractor (K. Perry of UAV Survey Incorporated) to generate additional aerial imagery (photos and videos). At select locations, geolocated photos are captured using a deliberate pre-programmed grid for subsequent creation of photogrammetric products like 3D point clouds/textured meshes, Digital Elevation Models, and Orthomosaics. The use of such flight plans achieves a targeted ground sample distance (resolution) of 3 centimeters or less.