Friday, November 14, 2012

NGS Responds to Hurricane Sandy

NOAA's National Geodetic Survey (NGS) has been coordinating with federal, state, and local officials and conducting remote sensing efforts in response to Hurricane Sandy. Requests came in from the U.S. Coast Guard District in New York for imagery collection of waterways supporting the ports of New York and New Jersey to verify the location of navigational aids and storm debris. NGS mission flights began on Wednesday, October 31, just hours after Hurricane Sandy made landfall, with NGS crews aboard NOAA's King Air and NOAA's Twin Otter aircraft collecting aerial imagery to assess damage caused by the storm. These high-resolution photos provide emergency and coastal managers with the information they need to develop recovery strategies. NGS Emergency Response imagery is spatially referenced, which allows it to be ingested into Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software. This attribute is what makes the NGS product unique from most other post storm imagery providers and is of great value to first responders, decision makers, and the public. The images facilitate search-and-rescue efforts, identify hazards to navigation and HAZMAT spills, locate errant vessels, and provide documentation necessary for damage assessment through the comparison of before-and-after imagery.

The following images provide a look at some of the aerial imagery NGS has collected. "Before" imagery is courtesy of Google, and "after" imagery was captured by NGS' remote sensing aerial operations. Move your mouse back and forth over each image to view the "before and after" comparison. "Before" image captured by Google; "After" image captured by NOAA's National Geodetic Survey.

From NGS's website, visitors can also view a map of the region and click on an icon to view thumbnail or high-definition images of a specific area. Images are now available for some of the Northeast's hardest-hit areas at:

http://storms.ngs.noaa.gov/storms/sandy/

Imagery will continue to be updated in the coming days.

For more information, contact Mike Aslaksen.

Friday, November 14, 2012

NGS Provides Well-documented View of the Devastation Caused by Hurricane Sandy

In coordination with federal, state, and local officials, NOAA's National Geodetic Survey (NGS) began conducting remote sensing operations in response to Hurricane Sandy on October 31st, just hours after Hurricane Sandy made landfall. NGS worked with partners including officials from the states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and North Carolina, as well as with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Civil Air Patrol, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. NGS crews conducted surveys from aboard NOAA's King Air and Twin Otter aircraft operated by NOAA's Office of Marine and Aviation Operations (OMAO). High-resolution imagery provided emergency and coastal managers with information to develop recovery strategies.

NGS Emergency Response imagery is spatially referenced, allowing it to be ingested into Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software, and was available within hours of collection. These attributes makes the NGS product unique from most other post-storm imagery providers and is of great value to first responders, decision makers, and the public. The images facilitate search-and-rescue efforts, identify hazards to navigation and HAZMAT spills, locate errant vessels, and provide documentation necessary for damage assessment. NGS' aerial imagery also provides a useful tool for private citizens to assess damage to public and private properties in their community. The photos can be compared to pre-storm imagery and GIS data to gain insight into the effects the storm has wrought on coastal areas.

From NGS's website, visitors can view a map of the survey region and click on an icon to view thumbnail or high-definition images of a specific area.
NGS Emergency Response Web Map Interface:
http://storms.ngs.noaa.gov/storms/sandy/index.html

Beginning with its first flight on October 31st, the NOAA King Air aircraft collected imagery of high-impact areas of New Jersey, from Atlantic City to Cape May. On a second flight, NOAA's King Air focused on areas of better forecast weather along Virginia Beach, Virginia, south to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. NOAA's Twin Otter aircraft departed later on October 31st to collect imagery of areas from Ocean City, Maryland, south to Cape Henry, Virginia, (including Wallops Island and Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel).

In coordination with NOAA's Office of Marine and Aviation Operations, on October 31st, representatives from the Discovery Channel, Canada accompanied the NGS crew and videographed the team for the program, Daily Planet. The video featured NOAA Corps officers, CDR Al Girimonte (pilot) and LT Rebecca Waddington (co-pilot), with NGS sensor operator, Andrew Halbach.

On November 1st, the first round of damage assessment imagery collected on October 31st along the New Jersey coast became available online.

The second round of damage assessment imagery collected on November 1st of the New Jersey coastline, part of New York City, and the Chesapeake Bay in the area of Norfolk and Virginia Beach, Virginia, became available online on November 2nd. Imagery was posted, and afternoon missions by both planes focused on the north shore and south shore of Long Island.

On November 3rd, the third round of damage assessment imagery collected on November 2nd of areas including Manhattan, Staten Island, and the north shore of Long Island became available online. This cycle of mission flights and posting of imagery continued through Nov 9th when all NOAA requirements were met, providing a well-documented view of the devastation caused by the storm.

In all, a total of 91.2 flight hours were logged over the span of 24 mission flights. A total of 12,664 images were collected and processed, most of which are available online. Crews flying in NOAA's King Air and Twin Otter aircraft surveyed 3,971 linear statute miles and 2,790 square statute miles of coastline to document coastal damage and impacts to navigation.

Data was immediately taken and re-hosted on Google Crisis Map, as well as by leading geospatial software manufacturer, Esri. NGS' imagery was featured by numerous Associated Press-affiliated media sources, as well as in television news broadcasts.

To date, there have been 33.4 million visits to NGS' emergency response website, with 7.64 terabytes of data downloaded. FEMA has used the photos, along with images provided by the Civil Air Patrol, to assess damage to more than 65,000 homes. This has assisted FEMA in rapidly processing loss claims from the public and to project temporary housing and financial assistance requirements. The aerial imagery greatly expedites FEMA's response times and reduces costs as compared to traditional door-to-door assessments conducted by ground teams.

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Comment from grateful recipient of National Geodetic Survey Hurricane Sandy emergency response imagery:
I want to send my thanks to the NOAA staff who put together the Sandy Imagery Viewer so quickly. As with many other New Jersey and Mid Atlantic residents, my family has been worried about the shape our house and neighborhood was in after the storm. Finally seeing that the house is standing in one piece (along with neighboring houses) is a big relief.
Resident of Lavallette, N.J., 11/01/2012
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Please also see the notice posted on NGS' website on November 2, 2012, with before-and-after imagery of Hurricane Sandy at:
http://geodesy.noaa.gov/web/news/NGS_Responds_to_Hurricane_Sandy.shtml

For more information, contact Mike Aslaksen.