Hurricane Season 2020 on NHERI Slack Channels
Published on September 25, 2020
The UF team sets up at Chennault Airport in Lake Charles, Louisiana, preparing for Hurricane Lauras landfall. (Source: Forrest Masters, DesignSafe hurricane-laura-2020 Slack channel)
During the 2020 hurricane season, NHERI researchers have been working around the clock, alongside diverse groups and individuals, collecting data on wind storm strength, location and resulting damage. All members of NHERI DesignSafe community are welcome to join Slack forums to follow the storms and the intrepid NHERI researchers.
Active groups during extreme weather include University of Florida team. Forrest Masters and his group tow mobile wind labs to likely landfall locations where they set up live experiments for data collection on damaging winds, wind-driven rain and structural loading. Also active are members of the Structural Extreme Events Reconnaissance network (StEER) and Near-shore Extreme Events Reconnaissance association (NEER).
The StEER network collects still photos, drone and street-level imagery. Within days, the team had uploaded its preliminary report on Hurricane Laura to DesignSafes Recon Portal and had posted a link on Slack. And, while monitoring the approach of Hurricane Sally, StEER released its full report, a hybrid Preliminary Virtual Reconnaissance Report-Early Access Reconnaissance Report (PVRR-EARR), for Hurricane Laura. In addition, NEER uploaded its preliminary report on Hurricane Laura to the Recon Portal. NSF-funded StEER and NEER fall under the NHERI-CONVERGE umbrella.
As of September 2020, StEER has released its event briefing for Hurricane Sally, accessible on DesignSafe.
For current details on NHERI-related work on the 2020 hurricane season, join the DesignSafe community and follow our teams on Slack. Participants in the DesignSafe Slack channels provide real-time info, including storm footage, road news reports, tracking data, and full-fledged storm reports.