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USGS Scientists Gather Images and Information About Recent Hurricanes
Hurricane season has kept scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Center for Coastal and Watershed Studies in St. Petersburg, FL, busy both personally and professionally, as they divide their time between preparing homes for the next storm and working to document the most recent damage. The striking results of their efforts—conducted in partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE)—can be viewed on the USGS Hurricane and Extreme Storm Impact Studies Web site. An early set of photographs posted on the site records a new breach through North Captiva Island, a barrier island off the southwest coast of Florida where Hurricane Charley's eye wall came ashore on August 13, 2004. USGS scientists Dennis Krohn, Karen Morgan, and Russ Peterson flew over the coast two days later to photograph the impacts of the category 4 hurricane. On August 16, USGS personnel quickly put together "before" (September 29, 1999) and "after" (August 15, 2004) mosaics of the breach that were published on August 17 in the New York Times. The photos can be viewed on the USGS Hurricane Charley Web site.
Also on the Web site, posted just days after Hurricane Charley, is a vertical color-infrared (IR) photograph, acquired by the NASA Experimental Airborne Advanced Research Lidar (EAARL) system, that shows destruction of trees on North Captiva Island. Each of the felled trees is aligned with the dominant wind direction. The site also has images of trees completely stripped of leaves, reminiscent of what happened when Hurricane Andrew hit south Florida in 1992. Three-dimensional topographic and bathymetric images produced from lidar (light detection and ranging) data collected in September 1998, May 2004, and August 2004 show how the breached area of North Captiva Island has changed over time. Category 2 Hurricane Frances came ashore on the central Atlantic coast of Florida on September 5, 2004. On September 8, USGS scientists began acquiring data, and their preliminary assessment of the coastal change caused by the hurricane is available on the USGS Hurricane Frances Web site. Included on this site are before-and-after photographs of coastal erosion and overwash deposits carried landward by waves and storm surge.
Category 3 Hurricane Ivan came ashore near Gulf Shores, AL, on September 16, 2004, causing heavy damage along the coast. The next day, USGS scientists conducted an aerial-photographic survey of the barrier islands in Alabama and Florida that were affected by the hurricane. Some of the resulting photographs have been posted on the USGS Hurricane Ivan Web site, paired with prestorm photographs, taken in July 2001, to illustrate the extreme coastal change produced by Hurricane Ivan.
Category 3 Hurricane Jeanne came ashore on the central Atlantic coast of Florida on September 25, 2004. USGS scientists took photographs of the damage on September 29 and have posted before-and-after pairs on the USGS Hurricane Jeanne Web site. Some of the photographs document damage by erosion of sand dunes and undermining of structures, and others document damage by deposition of sand in overwash deposits. Photographs grouped in threes—a shot of a coastal area in 1997, a shot of the same area after Hurricane Frances, and a shot of the area after Hurricane Jeanne—show progressive erosion by the two hurricanes, which hit Florida's central east coast just three weeks apart.
Please continue to visit the Hurricanes and Extreme Storm Impact Studies group of Web sites, where new information and images will be posted as they become available.
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in this issue:
Drilling Monitoring Wells in the Dry Tortugas American Samoa's Resilient Coral Reefs Seepage Samplers in Ashumet Pond
Gulf of Mexico Vulnerable to Hurricanes
Exhibit Designers Interested in Hurricane Research USGS Hosts Science-Learning Session
Deep Water Coral Research Workshop
Four Publications Win Shoemaker Awards Gene Shin Wins Shifting Baselines Contest
Elena Nilsen Joins Coastal and Marine Geology Team USGS Vessel To Test Counter-Terrorism Equipment
Human Influence on San Francisco Bay Floor |
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U. S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
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