Volunteers Geo-Locate Crowdsourced Photos for Hurricane Delta

Hurricane Delta, the 7th named storm of the 2020 Gulf storm season, made landfall early evening on Friday, October 9, near Creole, Louisiana. Delta reached land as a Category 2 storm, with 100 mph winds, just 15 miles east of Laura’s landing less than 6 weeks earlier. The National Alliance for Public Safety GIS Foundation (NAPSG) requested support from GISCorps volunteers for the long-standing Disaster Crowdsource Photos effort, to provide situational awareness to emergency managers.

 

Delta’s path crossed over Laura’s just before making landfall and moved eastward, but not before revisiting the city of Lake Charles, where much of the damage was still under repair and piles of debris from the cleanup had not yet been cleared away. The compounding crises created a special challenge for volunteers, requiring them to carefully differentiate between photos of damage from Delta vs. previous damage from Laura. Delta then moved inland through southeastern Arkansas and northern Mississippi, continuing to damage structures, down trees and cause power outages, while weakening to a tropical depression, with wind gusts up to 45 mph.

 

 

Project Complete.