Storm & Security

GUEST EDITORIAL Efforts to save more lives during hurricanes and the storm surge and flooding associated with them begin with maps. These aren't the fan-folded paper maps you used to get at gas stations. These are high-resolution, high-tech storm surge maps created by the Army Corps of Engineers—and they can be used to save lives and direct recovery resources. "Hurricane Sandy represented one of the largest scale evacuations declared in recent history in the United States," said Edward Schneyer, director of emergen- cy preparedness, Suffolk County [New York] Office of Emergency Management. "During Sandy we rescued 250 people from their flooded homes, evacuated two major hospitals and several adult homes," said Schneyer. The reason Schneyer says he was able to do this effectively was because his agency has storm surge maps created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (US- ACE), New York District. These maps provide emergency managers in all hurricane-prone states an understanding of the potential for the extent of storm surge that could occur for worst case Category 1 to 4 storms, identifying areas from which people should evacuate if faced with the threat of storm surge. Presently the Army Corps is updating these maps with higher resolution modeling and topography performed by NOAA'S National Hurricane Center's Storm Surge Unit, so agencies will have more accurate information to educate the public, thus reducing risk to themselves and their property. "Historically, 49 percent of human causalities from hurricanes are due to storm surge," said Donald E. Cresitello, USACE Hurricane Evacuation Study program manager for the state of New York, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York District. "Other impacts, like riverine flooding due to rainfall, falling trees due to high winds, and indirect impacts like carbon monoxide poisoning and electrocution, can cause deaths," he added. "The development of these maps is the first step in the hazard analysis for the hurricane evacuation study process," said Cresitello. How the Maps Are Used As the hurricane evacuation study managers for the National Hurricane Program, the Army Corps is responsible for creating the storm surge maps. The maps, officially named the New York Hurricane Evacuation Study Hurricane Surge Inundation Maps, are being produced in collaboration with the Army Corps' New England and Baltimore Districts. The Army Corps provides these maps to emergency managers in New York City, Westchester County and Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island, New York. The Army Corps also guides emergency managers on how to use these maps by providing the maps in a hurricane decision making software entitled HURREVA' (Hurricane Evacuation), developed by Sea Island Software for the National Hurricane Program. "Agency officials can use these maps to help reduce risk to the public," Cresitello said. "They can use them for evacuation planning, to redefine their hurricane evacuation zones, identify where shelters should be located and identify where assets should be staged prior to impact from a storm." Locally, emergency managers use the storm surge maps to devise life-saving procedures. "The storm maps serve as a very valuable resource for both government and private sector agencies, as well as private residents," Schneyer said. "As a government agency tasked with emergency management responsibilities pertaining to evacuation and sheltering of the public, we use the maps to gain insight and perspective into the geograph- ical area impacted and use this information to determine the number of buildings or population potentially impacted by a flood." From this information Schneyer's agency can also pre-identify damage assessments even before the storm impacts the region. Suffolk County, New York, where Schneyer manages, has approximately 1,000 miles of shoreline and its hurricane evacuation zones contain 225,000 residents. Mapping Out Storm Awareness, Response Saving more lives in sight during hurricane season. 24 STORM & SECURITY PROTECTION / PEOPLE IN THE KNOW 2015 | by JoAnne Castagna, Ed.D.

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