University of Iowa Flood Disaster Evacuation System

The flooding in June 2008 on the University of Iowa campus resulted in damages and losses approaching 1 billion dollars. A portion of those losses were related to the building contents. Even though the University established a building evacuation strategy before the flood event occurred, many building contents could not be removed in a timely manner. Working with the University of Iowa Facilities Management, a real-time building evacuations model was developed that reports building evacuation recommendations before a major flood occurs. This model provides decision-makers with a timeline of evacuations that can be spatiotemporally tracked within and adjacent to the floodplain.

Geospatial Tornado Modeling

A publically available geospatial tornado does not exist. To model the risk and vulnerability due to tornado winds a GIS-based tornado model was developed. This model creates a tornado path that simulates the expected winds a tornado creates and the damages that result. A user can supply a wide range of building inventories into the model to create a comprehensive risk assessment.  

City of Des Moines Mapping Hazards and Mitigation Infrastructure Project

The University of Iowa (UI), University of Northern Iowa (UNI), and The Polis Center (Polis) of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) will work together to assist the City of Des Moines in enhancing the Des Moines Area Regional GIS to support hazard risk assessment and vulnerability analysis for multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation planning. The City of Des Moines, in partnership with the Polk County Emergency Management Agency, is responsible for supporting activities that can prevent or reduce the significant losses that result from disasters. Successful mitigation activities are based on careful assessment of what may occur in the event of a disaster. Such planning often requires considerable expertise in order to evaluate the full scope of potential loss. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and HAZUS-MH are key components of the hazard vulnerability analysis and visualization.  

Earthquake and Tsunami Scenarios for Preparedness Exercise Planning

To effectively plan and prepare for an earthquake disaster, FEMA Region II and its State (Territory) and local partners engaged in an exercise that simulated an earthquake and accompanying tsunami that affected Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Local GIS building data was integrated into Hazus-MH to model the earthquake disaster's damages and losses. An independent tsunami model was initialized to produce a flood wave that was then integrated into Hazus-MH to produced the coastal storm surge damages.