Pieper Kelsey J, Beighley Edward, Jones C Nathan, Drewry Kyla, Jamshidi Reza, Li Yuyang, Michael Larry, Mize Wilson, Fowlkes Jon, Blethen Andrew, Wang Qi R, Bailey Emily, Kane Michael, Goforth Chris, Kane Evan, McCaully Rachael, King Cassidy, Webb Alisha, Goggins Brooke, Duvvuri Bhavya, Bartuska Elizabeth, Tang Tiffany, Li Weiyu
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, United States.
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487, United States.
Environ Sci Technol Lett. 2025 Jun 23;12(7):820-826. doi: 10.1021/acs.estlett.5c00503. eCollection 2025 Jul 8.
Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic flooding and infrastructure damage across the mountainous regions of western North Carolina. Responding agencies had to make real-time decisions about emergency response, infrastructure repair, and aid allocation. Here, we describe how our decade-long transdisciplinary research program supported data-driven recovery decisions in the days following a storm through the development of a novel emergency response decision support system (DSS). Integrating publicly available and geospatial data sets, we estimated that 4% of the total land area across the initial 25 disaster declared counties was flooded during Helene. While some areas did not experience a 100-year flood event, others had more severe flooding. We estimated that approximately 19 600 private wells, 34 300 businesses, and 500 fire stations were flooded. This type of real-time information was critical for supporting local health departments (LHDs) and state governments in their requests for emergency relief funding and their planning for emergency needs and assistance. Lessons learned through this effort highlight the importance of codeveloping knowledge and resources and providing actionable data and insights to enhance future disaster response efforts. Overall, our rapidly conceptualized and executed DSS demonstrated how providing actionable intelligence to responding LHDs and state governments can enable more effective distribution of real-time emergency resources.
海伦飓风在北卡罗来纳州西部山区引发了灾难性的洪水并造成基础设施损坏。响应机构必须就应急响应、基础设施修复和援助分配做出实时决策。在此，我们描述了我们长达十年的跨学科研究项目如何通过开发一种新型应急响应决策支持系统（DSS），在风暴过后的几天里支持基于数据的恢复决策。整合公开可用的地理空间数据集后，我们估计在最初宣布进入灾难状态的25个县中，有4%的总面积在海伦飓风期间被洪水淹没。虽然一些地区没有经历百年一遇的洪水事件，但其他地区遭受了更严重的洪水。我们估计约有19600口水井、34300家企业和500个消防站被洪水淹没。这类实时信息对于支持地方卫生部门（LHD）和州政府申请紧急救济资金以及规划应急需求和援助至关重要。通过这项工作吸取的经验教训凸显了共同开发知识和资源以及提供可操作数据和见解以加强未来灾害应对工作的重要性。总体而言，我们迅速构思并实施的DSS展示了向响应的地方卫生部门和州政府提供可操作情报如何能够更有效地分配实时应急资源。
