RAPID: Flood and Erosion Reconnaissance: Hurricanes Irene and Lee, Upstate New York and Western New England

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY

Investigators

Abstract

As a result of two large rainfall events from Hurricanes Irene and Lee around the last week of August, 2011 and the first weeks of September, 2011, a large part of the northeast US from Virginia to New England has experienced devastating and historic levels of flooding. The intent of this award is to document the flood damage, performing reconnaissance with a team of RPI faculty and students, interacting with various agencies such as State DOT?s, USGS and FEMA, and producing a comprehensive report in the summer of 2012. A rapid response is required to obtain this highly perishable and valuable flood data. The field work will begin as soon as possible, most will have to be done in the next few months prior to winter weather. It may be possible to do some field work next spring 2012, such as follow up and documentation of interesting and important case studies. Work on the report will continue during this winter 2011-12, including coordination and cooperation with the agencies noted above. The intent is to produce a final report summer of 2012. The report will also reference and provide links to other reports and sources of data published by other agencies. Typical data collected will be hydrological, consisting of high water levels, flow quantities and flood recurrence intervals; geotechnical data required to do slope and landslide stability analyses; scour and erosion data related to bridge and dam failures; and documentation such as photography and LIDAR measurements. Much of this data will have been obtained by other agencies. Even conservative estimates of flood damage in upstate NY, Western New England and Northern PA regions are in the tens of billions of dollars. This flood damage must be documented. FEMA, as recently directed by Congress, is in the process of revising its flood mapping procedures, and these floods will likely have an impact on FEMA procedures and the National Flood Insurance Program. The potential impact on insurance rates for U.S. property owners is in the many billions of dollars. This event is historic, and much can be learned about hydrology, flooding, river flow, erosion and more. This once in a lifetime (we hope) event must be well documented and studied. The numbers are not in, but it is clear that many water bodies have exceeded all time recorded levels, and many have experienced 500 year floods.