Dominica hurricane damage survey likely to help reduce disaster risk worldwide

Members of the survey team. Credit: Dr. Richard Teeuw

The biggest natural disaster to ever hit the Caribbean island of Dominica is now likely to provide guidelines for reducing the risk globally of disaster from hurricanes.

Scientists led by disaster expert Dr. Richard Teeuw, of the University of Portsmouth, are surveying the damage to Dominica’s landscape, infrastructure and communities following the destruction caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Dominica was devastated by the hurricane last September which left 68 people dead or missing. The hurricane registered as Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, with maximum wind speeds of 260 km/h.

The results of the surveys will provide guidelines for reducing vulnerability and exposure to hurricane-driven floods.

Global warming is expected to bring a steady rise in the number of hurricanes and an increase in their intensity.

The scientists are calling for urgent climate change adaptation strategies, particularly in small island developing states with limited financial resources.

Dr. Teeuw said: “It’s vital we better understand the strengths and vulnerabilities of the built environment, especially critical pieces of infrastructure, and examine ways of increasing the resilience of affected communities. All the evidence points towards global warming bringing a greater number of the largest (Category 5) hurricanes.

“The destruction hurricanes bring isn’t just caused by extreme winds, they also bring high amounts of rain which then cause soil erosion and flood, with boulders and fallen trees and floods forming destructive debris flows – entire houses have been swept away, even some with reinforced concrete walls.”

Dr. Teeuw and colleagues from the University of Portsmouth’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences and Department of Geography, as well as geologists from University College London and civil engineers from Brunel University, were awarded £64,000 for the six-month survey by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

The project involves a multi-disciplinary team of geoscientists, engineers and community resilience specialists, with drones capturing photographs of survey sites.

Working alongside the damage survey team, Dr. Carmen Solana of the University of Portsmouth and an expert in communicating the risk of damage from natural disasters, is studying the coping strategies and resilience of hurricane-hit communities.

The hurricane destroyed the roofs of 98 per cent of the buildings and the structural frames of half of the island’s houses. In the immediate aftermath, electricity was cut and communications were down, many bridges were damaged and water supplies were disrupted by erosion and breakage of pipes. In terms of structural engineering, the hurricane’s effects on the built environment are among the worst reported ever worldwide from hurricanes.

The field survey will document the geomorphological processes and their interactions, as well as damage to the built environment resulting from those processes in order to investigate damage mechanisms and building fragilities. The findings are likely to be very useful for Dominica’s plans to “Build back better.”

Survey target areas were selected after post-hurricane damage mapping, carried out using remotely sensed imagery from aircraft and Earth observation satellites, via volunteer crowdsource ‘mapathon’ events in the Caribbean and at the University of Portsmouth.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE HERE

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22 Comments

  1. NatureIsle
    February 14, 2018

    Wonderful… this is precisely the sort of research & post disaster scientific intitiative that an island with the topographical ecosystem challenges & set up such as Dominica needs. Let’s hope that the field surveys documenting the geomorphological processes and their interactions, as well as the assessment of damage to the built environment resulting from those processes will help enlighten & inform present damage mechanisms and building fragilities islandwide for generations to come. Hopefully this should also result in much better future land use & land conservation practices. May God abundantly Bless their efforts in the Nature Isle!

  2. Roger Burnett
    February 14, 2018

    I hope that they don’t mistakenly put the ongoing disaster at Antrim down to global warming, or as an act of God.

    • Anonymous
      February 14, 2018

      The gov’t could commit to fixing Antrim tomorrow if it wanted to. The question you should be asking is why it hasn’t done so.

      • Roger Burnett
        February 14, 2018

        Why? Because as one consultant has said, this must be the most colossal civil engineering blunder in the history of the Caribbean. The natural drainage, deep underground from the plateau above Cochrane, has been compromised by the weight of spoil from Red Gully. As a result the land above and below the road is now unstable.

        There is no quick fix and affordable remedy. But what would help would help is to take weight off the road, rather than putting it on. And this, against all advice, is still being done on a daily basis.

        In response to “Dion”. The contractor could not have dumped the spoil without permission. The question is: who granted that permission without an EIA and what was the role of the consultant.

      • Roger Burnett
        February 14, 2018

        I might add that the rational behind dumping the spoil was questioned from day one, both by myself and older employees at Public Works. The response was: we know what we’re doing.

        The consultant assured me that the fill would stabilize the road!

    • dion
      February 14, 2018

      You are so correct. The situation at Antrim was caused by Jack Gadakan dumping excavated soil from shelving of the road without any environmental impact assessment. Any destruction caused by this shifting land should fall squarely at the feet of Jack Gaddakhan.

  3. Shaka Zulu
    February 14, 2018

    I like the collection of individuals we have. Hopefully the info collected will be used. I graduated from SIFOCOL with a distiction in Geography. I went on further to study Geology because i saw it as much needed in Dominica. Aid bank refused to give loans for that field at tve time and instead were approving loans for psychology. This shows the vision of our country in developing its own resources. I was recently home and on my drive to Roseau identified rock faces from possi to Roseau that pose risk to public. My point being that we have dominican resources that are quite capable of making thise surveys and recommendations but it seems like our people never respect or trust the accomplishments of thier own. I would gladly help review and read the results of this survey. I taught geography in high school for two years and i can tell you that the conclusions of this will be nothing new. Our problem is implementing and enforcement. Erosion is caused by wind, water, ice, waves etc.

    • Shaka Zulu
      February 14, 2018

      This processes are magnified during a storm so the rate and intensity of erosion increases. As a result river does more removal and transportation, waves remove more coastlines and so on. Over time we see these processes. We have aeen the erosion of the back road in massacre tbat once passed by airport. Any observant individual will see geomorphology changes over time and will make the needed engineering controls and adjustments. Thjs is where our problem lies. After 40 years of independence we still have not found a way to keep and utilize our most important resources, its people. I know Dominica and its potential better than any Brit and say this with no reservations but will our people accept my observations?? No. This should be an opportunity for the UWI to develop new resilience technology that Dominica and the region can sell to tbe world but instead our inferiority complex keeps us from being fully innovative and progressively independent.

      • Shaka Zulu
        February 14, 2018

        I should add, i hope our state college geo students are part of the process because it will be a wonderful opportunity to learn something pertinent to thier field and Dominica. If our students are not somehow part of it not only will we have lost an opportunity for practical knowledge but lost another opportunity to invole and develop our own.

      • dion
        February 14, 2018

        Guess what the British engineers must turn to the public for local knowledge. Over the last hundred years there has not been any serious natural disaster on Dominica except for hurricane David . Many communities have been established in and on river beds. We have encroached into the flood plain and now we are paying a rater price.

      • Roger Burnett
        February 15, 2018

        Shaka Zulu, I agree with all you have said. We disregard local knowledge. And that knowledge is not restricted to university graduates. A great deal can be learnt from the older generation of Dominicans.

    • sylvester Cadette
      February 14, 2018

      Hi Shaka Zulu. This is interesting because before I went into Telecommunications I did Geography at then Clifton Dupigny Community College (former SIFOCOL) in the class of 1985. I later taught geography for three years at the then St. Andrews High School (now North East Comprehensive). It was interesting studying geomorphology and especially Penck’s, Passagre and Davisian Model of slopes which is so important in a Dominican context given our topography and geomorphological structure. Another area of interest was Pluvial and Fluvial processes.
      But after delving into Human and economic geography I saw the direction of deployment and use of telecommunications systems in influencing contemporary economic landscapes & shifted to telecommunications. It led me back to being Director of Telecommunications during the Telecoms Reform in Dominica and now working with UN Specialized Agency for ICT the ITU.
      You are so right about how Dominica relates (or NOT RELATE) to its Human Resource

      • Shaka Zulu
        February 14, 2018

        Cadette i surely remember those names and you were several years my senior. Sorry i dont use my real name so folks can focus on subject not messenger. Respect to you guys i know you mean well. I wrote this because in all this talk we have capable people who can do a great job. It seems like everytime we think of innovation it has to come from USA or some foriegn country. I know there are capable Dominicans and the problem is our inability to implement the education and knowledge we gave learnt. What is the point of educating people lime me and you for all these years and in 2018 we still depend on Britain and others. No offense to these folks i think they are finaly using right people. I put this out to say how are we goi g to be resilent if we still depend on others to give us scientific data? What has our education done for us? Did i waste my time in school if i cannot use to impact future of my homeland? What are we doing to encourage Dominican ingenuity?

      • Shaka Zulu
        February 14, 2018

        With alk the wood maria brought down could we not find some use, like a lumber company making compated ply wood and other wood material for building. With todays technology some of these engineered material are stronger than in the past. I see opportunity. The first time layou river went down a company made and is still making millions seling aggregate for roads and construction. There is enough material in the river bed to buil back eroded coastlines. They were formed from eroded material in the first place deposited ove long periods of time. Volcanic sands are some of best building material because the are more stable and not easily affected by acid rain and salts. i believe everything in life is a blessing we just have to see it.

  4. Iamanidiot
    February 14, 2018

    “Global warming is expected to bring a steady rise in the number of hurricanes and an increase in their intensity.”

    Global warming wont bring a rise to the number, but it will bring a rise to the intensity and how fast they develop

    • JahKnow
      February 14, 2018

      URANIDIOT: :lol: :lol: :lol:

  5. It's me again
    February 14, 2018

    These so called scientists don’t understand a thing a thing they talking about. yes they will say because of what happened in Dominica other countries need to do this and that to better protect their countries from natural disasters. However, what they fail to realize is, Maria was more than a hurricane and, though the destruction came via a hurricane, the truth is Maria was God speaking against the evils of our government and people, that have gone unnoticed to the point that everything that was known and taught to be right became wrong under this evil administration and everything wrong has now been blessed and treated as good. Our country got so bad and evil that even the church that was known and taught to be God’s voice to the nation unfortunately became part of Skerrit’ evil tool. Unless other countries of the world understand that God hates evil and will judge it, they would be making a serious mistake in believing that lessons learn from Maria will help them.

    • It's me again
      February 14, 2018

      It is alright for people to vote and support a party of their choice but it is not alright for people to defend the works of Satan to protect their party. Quite clearly that’s what happened in Dominica and people that claim to be on Jehovah’s side not only said nothing but they became part of the problem. Think of popular evangelist put down the bible to go carry corrupt envelopes to voters like FEDEX just to keep evil. What about the one that lied about Villas on national radio just to protect the evil one? What about the priest that put asunder when he performed an unholy marriage just to cover evil? What shall we say about bishops, pastors that were bribed in $500K for roof, ac etc case? No wonder so many churches were destroyed by Maria especially the Adventist, Pentecostal, Baptist and Catholic, and some how Jehovah’s witness did not suffer that much because they did not go in bed with corruption and did not accept bribe. Scientist can’t see that but that’s what brought Maria

      • Man bites dogs
        February 14, 2018

        Who the hell let that mad person out of the mad house :?:

      • Paul Rossnof
        February 14, 2018

        Great, I love it! One mad person calls another one a mad person. Doggy, in which mad house did you meet?

  6. dee
    February 14, 2018

    Now we talking,
    Let the professionals whose sponsors have deep pockets come in .
    Let them use their resources to investigate, assess and report .
    But I say we must heed their reports .

    • dee
      February 14, 2018

      And it shouldn’t be LIKELY to provide guidelines , you all are professionals and SHOULD provide guidelines to help reduce risk , OK

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