Critical Infrastructure Modeling for Floods

Flooding is the most frequent disaster in the United States. There have been some significant floods in the past year. Right now Minnesota and Wisconsin are recovering from one and the Memphis flood of six months ago was huge. The Tennessee flood didn't get as much coverage I think because of the Gulf Oil Spill that eclipsed it.

Another 500 year flood happened back in 2008 when Cedar Rapids, Iowa took it on the nose. Purdue University has come up with a new model topredict damage and assist in your prevention/mitigation efforts

Check out the linked story above on this new modeling effort. Cedar Rapids was one of the communities looked at in doing their study.

Two other side notes on the above.

• I had not heard of the National Science Foundation's Infrastructure Management and Extreme Events Program that funded this research.
• Note the names of the researchers. Makarand Hastak and Abhijeet Deshmukh, one the professor and the other a grad student. One of the dynamics happening in higher education is that we still have many international students coming to the USA for their college education. Where previously many might have tried to stay here and work, there are now many returning to their native countries to live. This is a good thing for promoting emergency management and disaster mitigation worldwide. Having trained experts in other countries will promote our discipline worldwide. If they do choose to stay in the USA, then we welcome them and the expertise they bring to this land that needs their knowledge and energies.

Lastly, lest we forget, the recovery effort goes on long after the cameras have left. The FEMA process is arduous and cities like Cedar Rapids are not out of the paper muck that we call recovery.

The information on the flood model was shared by Sandi Fowler.