News Archive

Coastal Resilience Center to lead post-Matthew disaster recovery efforts

Kinston is one of six communities that is the focus on the Hurricane Matthew Disaster Recovery and Resilience Initiative. Photo by Travis Klondike/N.C. State University.

  Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence (CRC) researchers and students across several North Carolina universities will be leading three primary efforts in response to Hurricane Matthew. These include: 1) studying the impacts of Hurricane Matthew on eastern North Carolina communities; 2) advising North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and the North Carolina Division of Emergency Management … Read more

Richardson named Associate Director of CRC

Thomas Richardson

Tom Richardson has been named Associate Director of the Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence (CRC), effective Jan. 1. Richardson, who was previously Transition Director of the CRC, will be responsible for many day-to-day activities involved in managing the Center. He is based at Jackson State University in Jackson, Miss. “I am very grateful for Tom’s … Read more

CRC researchers working with Hurricane Matthew-affected communities

Dr. Robert Twilley

Since Hurricane Matthew hit the Southeastern U.S. in early October, Coastal Resilience Center researchers have been working with affected states and communities to better withstand the next storm. In the days leading up to and during the storm, CRC researchers tracked the storm path and predicted storm surge along Matthew’s path up Florida, Georgia, South … Read more

Maritime Risk Symposium focuses on intersection of coastal and maritime resilience

Dr. Melissa Allen, Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Computational Science and Engineering Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, spoke during the third session, “Enhancing the Resilience of Coastal Infrastructure.”

Representatives from the U.S. Coast Guard, the Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence (CRC) and academic and practitioners from around the country came together on Nov. 14-15, 2016, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for the 7th  Annual Maritime Risk Symposium. Members of the military, commercial and academic communities focused on the topic of “Integrating … Read more

Coastal Resilience Center joins Southeast Disaster Recovery Partnership

High floodwaters. Photo courtesy the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence (CRC) has joined a regional government partnership to aid the disaster recovery process in the Southeastern United States. The Southeast Disaster Recovery Partnership, which is run by the Southeast Coastal Ocean Observing Regional Association (SECOORA), was formed as the result of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grant to … Read more

RENCI and Coastal Resilience Center partnership honored with 2016 HPCwire Editors’ Choice Award

The CERA website shows Matthew's projected storm path and surge on Oct. 6, 2016, as the storm made its way up the East Coast.

  The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) and the Department of Homeland Security Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence (CRC) have been recognized in the annual HPCwire Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Awards, presented at the 2016 International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC16) in Salt Lake … Read more

CRC project tracks long-term recovery in communities

Dr. Jen Horney

Dr. Jennifer Horney believes that the quality of disaster recovery can be markedly improved with a well-designed, comprehensive and holistic pre-disaster recovery plan.

Dr. Horney, of Texas A&M University, is the Principal Investigator on the Coastal Resilience Center project “Implementing the Disaster Recovery Tracking Tool.”

Dr. Horney and research associate Katie Kirsch collect long-term data on 84 metrics of recovery. Tools are needed that can measure recovery at the local, regional and state levels to lead to best practices being adopted, Horney said. Valid and reliable measures of community disaster recovery – both those measured numerically and those impacting quality of life – are needed in order to be able to track recovery in different geographic locations, from different types of disasters and over time.

Through the Disaster Recovery Tracking Tool, an online database of these metrics, end-users can track the progress and quality of post-disaster recovery. The Tool, at trackyourrecovery.org, uses baseline metrics for a community and allows for updates during the post-disaster period to provide context for changes over time. Two pilot communities will be involved with the project to demonstrate the abilities of the Tool, and lessons learned from that work will be incorporated into marketing materials, a training module and a user guide for additional end-users.

Read more

Why did residents in Hurricane Matthew’s path not evacuate?

Dr. Jennifer Horney of Texas A&M University, whose Coastal Resilience Center (CRC) project focuses on tracking long-term disaster recovery, recently published an article on the website The Conversation about the reasons that people don’t evacuate in the face of imminent threats such as hurricanes.

Coastal Resilience Center researchers, partners aid in Hurricane Matthew preparation and recovery

ADCIRC projections for storm surge locations and impact from Hurricane Matthew, as seen on these images from the CERA website, changed dramatically between Oct. 4 (left) and Oct. 7 (right).

  Researchers at the Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence (CRC) have been working with hurricane forecasters and emergency response officials to track Hurricane Matthew as it made its way through the Caribbean and up Florida to the Carolinas earlier this month. Using technology and tools being developed and improved through Center projects, they will continue … Read more

Coastal Resilience Center researchers ‘making waves’ in hurricane mitigation

Team members (left to right) William Short, Hyoungsu Park, Trung Do, Kevin Cueto, Tori Tomiczek, Diego Delgado, Dr. Pedro Lomonaco, Dr. Daniel Cox and Ben Hunter. Not pictured: Tim Maddux and Dr. John van de Lindt. Credit: Oregon State University
Team members (left to right) William Short, Hyoungsu Park, Trung Do, Kevin Cueto, Tori Tomiczek, Diego Delgado, Dr. Pedro Lomonaco, Dr. Daniel Cox and Ben Hunter. Not pictured: Tim Maddux and Dr. John van de Lindt. Photo via Oregon State University.

 

Researchers from Oregon State University and Colorado State University are conducting benchmark laboratory and numerical experiments to improve the resilience of coastal structures subject to hurricane waves and surge.

Principal investigator Dr. Daniel Cox and co-Principal Investigator Dr. John van de Lindt are concluding the first phase of a multiphase project titled “Experimental and Numerical Study to Improve Damage Due to Overland Wave and Surge Hazards on Near-Coast Structures.” The Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence (CRC) project includes three phases that will improve the estimation of damage based on overland surge and wave forces that can be used in risk-based design methodologies:

  • Physical modeling to quantify wave forces on elevated coastal structures based on a variety of wave and surge conditions and develop predictive equations for horizontal and vertical wave forces.
  • Develop fragility curves (statistical representation of vulnerability) for wave heights, pressures, or forces exceeding key damage thresholds.
  • Illustrate risk-informed design methodologies that can improve the resilience of near-coast structures vulnerable to hurricane effects.

 

The research team is comprised of collaborators from Oregon State University (OSU) and Colorado State University (CSU), including CSU graduate student Trung Do, OSU graduate student Ben Hunter, Dr. Pedro Lomonaco (OSU), Tim Maddux (OSU), OSU graduate student Hyoungsu Park, OSU graduate student William Short and OSU graduate student Tori Tomiczek. This summer the project involved DHS-sponsored graduate student Kevin Cueto and undergraduate student Diego Delgado from the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez (UPRM) during the summer as part of the CRC SUMmer Research EXperience (SUMREX) program. Through this program, students from CRC education partners, including UPRM, visit PIs from research partners to be involved in research projects and gain experience.

Read more

Researcher uses neural networks to simulate storms

Dr. Anton Bezuglov, right, visiting faculty from Benedict College, worked with student Reinaldo Santiago, left, and CRC PI Dr. Brian Blanton on a project to speed up the ADCIRC storm-surge model while at UNC-Chapel Hill this summer.

As part of a Department of Homeland Security-funded summer research team program at the Coastal Resilience Center (CRC), Principal Investigator Brian Blanton at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill hosted Dr. Anton Bezuglov, an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Benedict College in Columbia, S.C. The summer program focuses on matching researchers and … Read more

Four projects improving on ADCIRC speed, reliability

Hurricane Ike dike

The ADCIRC storm surge model is a major focus of Coastal Resilience Center research projects. Each of the four projects focus on making improvements to the model to allow faster simulations of flooding, both onshore and inland, in time-sensitive situations. The decreased response time will benefit coastal communities, including emergency management personnel, who will have … Read more

CRC Partners: Dr. Joseph DiRenzo, U.S. Coast Guard

Dr. Joseph Direnzo

This fall, the Department of Homeland Security’s Coastal Resilience Center (CRC) will collaborate with the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) to host the 7th Annual Maritime Risk Symposium. The event, which runs from Nov. 14-15, 2016, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will focus on “Integrating Maritime and Coastal Resilience.” The conference is designed to … Read more

Coastal Resilience Center to host 2016 Maritime Risk Symposium

Maritime Risk Symposium logo

Invited university, governmental and private sector officials will gather this fall to discuss the intersection of maritime and coastal resilience. The 7th Maritime Risk Symposium (MRS 2016) will be held on Nov. 14-15 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, hosted by the Department of Homeland Security’s Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence. The … Read more

Center PI’s work adopted in Weather Service model

Dr. Isaac Ginis

Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence (CRC) Principal Investigator Dr. Isaac Ginis and colleagues have made significant contributions to the National Weather Service’s operational hurricane prediction models. The Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory and Hurricane Weather Research and Forecasting models adopted Dr. Ginis and colleagues’ inputs this month. The upgrades will help track storms in the Northern … Read more

Students at CRC partners to hear from experts around Center

CRC PI Dr. Casey Dietrich

Over the next few semesters, Coastal Resilience Center (CRC) investigators will be giving lectures to students in other parts of the country about their research as part of the integration of CRC research and education projects distributed among 21 universities and colleges in 12 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. The CRC’s RETALK (short for Research … Read more

UPR-M places seventh in national competitions

during the Concrete Canoe Competition, Saturday, June 11, 2016 at Lake Tyler in Tyler, Texas. (Brandon Wade/AP Images for American Society of Civil Engineers)

Engineering students from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPR-M) picked up several top-5 awards at the ASCE Concrete Canoe Championship, held June 9-11 in Tyler, Texas. They placed seventh overall among universities in both Concrete Canoe and in the National Student Steel Bridge Competition on May 27-28 at Brigham Young University in Provo, … Read more

Summer faculty to be hosted by Center

Dr. Anton Bezuglov

A Coastal Resilience Center (CRC) PI will host faculty this summer semester as part of a program to facilitate further involvement of Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) in the Center’s projects. This summer, Principal Investigator Brian Blanton, at UNC-Chapel Hill, will host Dr. Anton Bezuglov, an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Benedict College in Columbia, S.C. … Read more

UPR-Mayagüez students win regional engineering competition

University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez’s award-winning team
University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez's award-winning team
University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez’s award-winning team. Photo submitted.

The Department of Civil Engineering and Surveying at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez (UPR-M), home school of Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence (CRC) project Principal Investigator Ismael Pagán-Trinidad and Co-Principal Investigator Ricardo López, recently took first prize in a regional competition to build the best concrete canoe, steel bridge and other competitions. Professors Pagán-Trinidad (department chair) and López (department associate chair for research and graduate studies) direct the CRC project “Education for Improving Resiliency of Coastal Infrastructure.”

At the March 10-12 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Southeast Student Conference 2016 at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, AL, UPR-M, the civil engineering team, under the leadership and coordination of civil engineering and surveying students and mentor faculty, took overall first prize in a regional competition that judges all aspects of vessel design and use. The ASCE holds the three-day competition, which also includes students from Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Tennessee, annually. UPR-M won 17 prizes, nine of which were first prizes:

  • Balsa Bridge
  • Concrete Corn Hole
  • Steel Bridge Economy
  • Steel Bridge Construction Speed
  • Steel Bridge Overall
  • Concrete Canoe – Women’s Sprint
  • Concrete Canoe – Men’s Sprint
  • Concrete Canoe – Design Paper
  • Regional Competition Overall
Canoe design
A canoe design is shown from the regional competition. Photo submitted. Photo submitted.

“We are excited and proud of our students, faculty and sponsors,” Pagán-Trinidad said. “We have been in first place three times and second place twice in the last five years. It takes a lot of effort but more determination and passion from our students to even been able to participate, not to mention becoming champs.”

Read more

‘Role of States’ focuses on response to hurricanes Floyd, Katrina

Role of States in Disaster Recovery video thumbnail

"Role of States" screenshotFormer North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt and former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour have some advice for dealing with major hurricane recovery. In a new video, the governors and former senior emergency management staff discuss the complexities of planning for and recovering from major storm events.

The video, “The Role of States in Disaster Recovery,” is an instructional video combining research and oral history to address dealing with the type of large-scale natural disasters that coastal states face. It focuses on the recovery from Hurricane Floyd (North Carolina, 1999) and Hurricane Katrina (Mississippi, 2005). Both storms were the costliest in their states’ respective histories.

The video was funded by the Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence (CRC) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and produced as part of the CRC grant. It includes interviews with several individuals based on their role during recovery periods for Floyd and Katrina:

  • Ashley Edwards, of the Miss. Governor’s Office for Recovery & Renewal
  • Billy Ray Hall, Director of the Hurricane Floyd Redevelopment Center
  • Norma Houston, of the NC Redevelopment Center and legal counsel for NC State Sen. Marc Basnight
  • CRC Director Gavin Smith, who was Assistant Director of North Carolina Emergency Management at the time of Hurricane Floyd, and Executive Director of the Governor’s Office of Recovery & Renewal after Hurricane Katrina
  • Faye Stone, Executive Director of the NC Commission on Volunteerism & Community Service during Hurricane Floyd Recovery
  • Mike Womack, Director of the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency

The video is part of a larger, multi-year project that includes an instructional guide, journal articles and a future book on the same subject. The project explains the role of the state in disaster recovery, including the key roles assumed by executive and mid-level managers, namely governors, their cabinet and state agency officials tasked with disaster recovery duties.

Read more

Fugate: Whole community is needed in emergency management

Fugate addresses a public audience during a visit to UNC-Chapel Hill

The nation’s top emergency management official says that the ultimate goal of the public agency should be to lead the public toward a risk scenario that the private sector would underwrite, and to include the public more thoroughly in disaster response and recovery efforts. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Craig Fugate spoke at UNC-Chapel … Read more