Lab 5: Damage Assessment

 

For this week's lab, we created a path from Hurricane Sandy coordinate points, shown above, and categorized them based on storm type as the storm continued on its path. I used labels and label properties features to make labels that show the Bar Pressure and Wind Speed along the path as well. Next, we practiced creating a Survey123 for citizens to submit information on the damage in their area.

Then, I used pre-storm and post-storm imagery to create data on structure damage from Hurricane Sandy. To do this, I created a domain associated with the attribute field for how a structure was affected by the storm with codes. For example, Structure Damage was 0=No Damage, 1=Affected, 2=Minor Damage, 3=Major Damage, 4=Destroyed. Then, I used the Create Features tool to digitize points and classify them within the domains I created: Structure Damage, Wind Damage, Inundation, Structure Type.

After creating all the Structure Damage points, I created a new Feature Class to digitize the coastline to examine patterns in locations of structures and where damage occurred. After digitizing, I calculated the distance from each structure to the coastline using Near Tool, which adds a new field showing the distance in meter. Then, to group the structures into distance categories: 0-100m, 100-200m, 200-300m, and 300+ meters. I used the Field Calculator to create a new classification field. Finally, I used select by attributes to get the counts for each of the categories in the table shown below. 

Structure Damage Category	Count of Structures 0-100 m from coastline	Count of Structures 100-200 m from coastline	Count of Structures 200-300 m from coastline	Count of Structures 300m + from coastline
No Damage	0	0	0	0
Affected	0	0	0	137
Minor Damage	0	25	38	338
Major Damage	50	55	167	137
Destroyed	64	135	24	1
Totals	114	215	229	613

 

The clear relationship between the distance to coastline and structural damage is that structures within the 100 meters of the coastline had the highest number of destroyed and majorly damaged buildings. As the distance increased to the 100-200m category, the number of severely damaged structures decreased slightly, and within 200-300m, most structures had only minor damage. For example, within the first 100m, 56% of structures were destroyed while 0.16% of the structures within 300m and beyond were destroyed.

Here is the link to a Story Map using the results from this lab and last week's coastal flooding lab.