Page 24 - aruba-today-20190423

A24 TECHNOLOGY
Tuesday 23 april 2019
Drones, supercomputers and sonar deployed against floods

are sent to an emergency
flood operation center in
real time, allowing Corps
officials to visualize any
problems and their exact
location, instantly informing
the response, Bidlack said.
"If people in the field have
concerns about some-
thing, they can let us know
to go out there and look
at it," Bidlack said. "There's
a picture associated with
it, a description of it, and it
helps us take care of it."
Corps engineers are in-
creasingly flying drones to
get their own aerial pho-
tography and video of
flooded areas they can't
otherwise get to because
of high water or rough ter-
rain, said Edward Dean, a
Corps engineer.
"We can reach areas that
are unreachable," Dean
said.
The Corps also now uses
high-definition sonar in its
The Aug. 8, 2017, file photo shows the supercomputer named Cheyenne at the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center near daily operations to survey
Cheyenne, Wyo.
Associated Press the riverbed, pinpointing
where maintenance work
By ADRIAN SAINZ and JEFF tion to use in real time, en- said Ed Clark, director of system known as DSS-WISE . needs to be done, said
MARTIN abling emergency manag- the National Water Center The software went online in Corps engineer Andy Sim-
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — An ers and people at risk to in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a 2017 and quickly provided merman. The Memphis dis-
arsenal of new technol- make decisions that can flood forecasting hub. simulations that informed trict uses a 26-foot survey
ogy is being put to the test save lives and property, Much of the technology, the response to heavy rains boat called the Tiger Shark,
fighting floods this year as said Kristie Franz, associate such as the National Wa- that damaged spillways with a sonar head that
rivers inundate towns and professor of geological and ter Model , didn't exist un- at the nation's tallest dam looks like an old-fashioned
farm fields across the cen- atmospheric sciences at til recently. Fueled by su- in northern California. The vacuum cleaner and col-
tral United States. Drones, Iowa State University. percomputers in Virginia program also helped fore- lects millions of points per
supercomputers and sonar The cost of this technology and Florida, it came online cast the flooding after Hur- square inch of data, Sim-
that scans deep under wa- is coming down even as di- about three years ago and ricane Harvey in Texas and merman said.
ter are helping to maintain saster recovery becomes expanded streamflow data Louisiana that year. The technology has helped
flood control projects and more expensive, so "any- by 700-fold, assembling Engineers monitoring le- them find cars and trucks
predict just where rivers will thing we can do to reduce data from 5 million river vees along the Mississippi that have been dumped
roar out of their banks. the costs of these floods miles (8 million kilometers) River have been collecting into the river, along with
Together, these tools are and natural hazards is worth of rivers and streams na- and checking data using weak spots in the levees.
putting detailed informa- it," she said. "Of course, loss tionwide, including many a geographic information "These areas are 20 to 80
of life, which you can't put smaller ones in remote ar- system produced by Esri, feet underwater, we'd nev-
a dollar amount on, is cer- eas. said Nick Bidlack, levee er get to see them without
tainly worth that as well." "Our models simulate ex- safety program manager sonar," Simmerman said.
U.S. scientists said in their actly what happens when for the Memphis district "The water never gets low
spring weather outlook the rain falls on the Earth of the U.S. Army Corps of enough for us to see a lot
that 13 million people are and whether it runs off Engineers. The company of these failures."
at risk of major inundation, or infiltrates," Clark said. produces mapping tools During recent flooding near
with more than 200 river "And so the current con- such as an interactive site Cairo, Illinois, a culvert that
gauges this week show- ditions, whether that be showing the nation's larg- should have been closed
ing some level of flooding snow pack or the soil mois- est rivers and their average was sending water onto
in the Mississippi River ba- ture in the snow pack, well monthly flow. the dry side of a levee. The
sin, which drains the vast that's something we can On the Mississippi River, sonar pointed engineers to
middle of the United States. measure and monitor and flood inspectors use smart- the precise location of a
Major flooding continues in know." phones or tablets in the log that was stuck 20 feet
places from the Red River Emergency managers and field to input data into deep in murky water, keep-
in North Dakota to near the dam safety officials can map-driven forms for wa- ing the culvert open. Plastic
mouth of the Mississippi in see simulations of the con- ter levels and the locations sheathing and sandbags
Louisiana, a map from the sequences of flood waters of inoperable flood gates, were brought in to stop the
National Weather Service washing away a levee or seepages, sand boils or le- flow and save the land be-
shows. crashing through a dam vee slides, which are cracks low.
"There are over 200 mil- using technology devel- or ditches in the slopes of "The sonar definitely made
lion people that are under oped at the University of an earthen levee. Pho- a difference," said Simmer-
some elevated threat risk," Mississippi — a web-based tos, videos and other data man. "A big success."q