Module 3 - Applications in GIS - Damage Assessment

In this week's Applications in GIS lab assignment, we studied damage assessment, specifically for Hurricane Sandy, which hit the east coast of the United States in October 2012.

This figure shows a portion of the New Jersey coast, with post-storm imagery for structures in three city blocks.  We used ArcMap to compare post-storm and pre-storm images and assigned degrees of damage to each building in this study area.  The damage assessment was based on structural damage, wind damage and inundation of each building.  Because of the presence of sand and moisture on the streets of these blocks post-storm, I concluded that probably all of the structures had been inundated to some degree.  For a house to be classified as destroyed (red dots), part or all of it had to have been reduced to a pile of rubble.  Major structural damage was assigned to a house that still retained its pre-storm shape, but is surrounded by rubble and has other structures pushed against it.  Wind damage was judged partly by the exposure of a structure to the coast, and condition of trees around it, and the presence or absence of debris near it.

Here is a table classifying the houses based on their degree of damage and distance from the shore.  I used Select by Attribute and Select by Location to tabulate this data.

Results Table for Distance from Coastline vs.  Damaged Property