Hurricane, wind, storm surge, damage assessment, Puerto Rico, Maria
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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 reconnaissance campaign was organized for the US Virgin Islands November 10-14, 2017 to document the impacts of Irma and Maria in St. Thomas (STT), St. Johns (STJ), and St. Croix (STX). Separate efforts were organized for Florida as well as Puerto Rico, each curated as separate DesignSafe projects (PRJ-1828 and PRJ-1775, respectively). The investigations employed primarily door-to-door Damage Assessments to document the performance of buildings, using a customized Fulcrum smartphone application. At select locations, unmanned aerial surveys (UAS) were executed. The team coordinated with a larger team of coastal engineers from the United States and Japan, who conducted a comprehensive coastal survey. While this larger US-Japan team generated additional data, well beyond the scope of this RAPID, this Data Report and the corresponding DesignSafe project focuses on the data associated with structural damage assessments. 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 | Structural Assessment Team
Cite This Data:
Prevatt, D., D. Roueche, T. Kijewski-Correa, Y. Li, K. Perry, D. Cox, A. Barbosa, O. Lafontaine, S. Montalvo-Perez, A. Noto, H. Rawajfih, M. Rihner (2020). "Structural Assessment Team", in RAPID: A Coordinated Structural Engineering Response to Hurricane Irma (and Hurricane Maria in the US Virgin Islands). DesignSafe-CI. https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-sb62-dg15
Damage was assessed primarily by members of the Structural Assessment Team, with additional contributions by members of the US Coastal Survey Team. These investigations employed primarily door-to-door Damage Assessments to document the performance of buildings, using a customized Fulcrum smartphone application.
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.
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.