LSU Researchers Assist State Agencies with Hurricane Response Plans

“A helicopter hovers over a flooded area following passage of Hurricane Betsy, a Category Three storm that hit southeast Louisiana in September 1965, causing $1.4 billion in damage, 81 deaths, and a 10-foot storm surge.” Photo courtesy NOAA.

Thanks to LSU’s hurricane experts, South Louisiana’s emergency officials are better prepared than ever to respond to the all-too-familiar threat of severe tropical weather.

This is Only a Test

Last summer, staff from the LSU Hurricane Center participated in the “Hurricane Pam Exercise,” a 10-day event designed to help emergency officials develop a response plan should a major hurricane threaten the greater New Orleans area.

Realistic weather and damage data generated by the National Weather Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the LSU Hurricane Center showed, with winds of 120 mph, the fictional Hurricane Pam would be a Category Three storm that would pour 20 inches of rain on parts of southeast Louisiana. In addition, more than one million residents would be forced to evacuate and nearly 600,000 buildings would be destroyed.

LSU Hurricane Center staff worked with the Louisiana Office of Emergency Preparedness, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and emergency officials from several parish, state, and federal agencies to help disaster response teams plan for search and rescue missions, medical care, sheltering, temporary housing, school restoration, and debris management.

“The exercise had enormous educational value to state and federal emergency managers,” said Ivor van Heerden, director of LSU’s Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes.” It showed the scope of potential problems they will face and made them far more aware of the help they will need.”

Aftermath

From the simulation, officials estimate that a storm like Hurricane Pam would:

• cause flooding that would leave 300,000 people trapped in New Orleans, many of whom would not have private transportation for evacuation;
• send evacuees to 1,000 shelters, which would likely remain open for 100 days;
• require the transfer of patients from hospitals in harm’s way to hospitals in other parts of the state;
• trigger outbreaks of tetanus, influenza, and other diseases likely to be present after a storm;
• create 30 million cubic yards of debris and 237,000 cubic yards of household hazardous waste.

As a result of the Hurricane Pam Exercise, agencies are in the process of applying what they learned to their emergency response plans. Those changes include:

• assisting people without transportation – the American Red Cross is developing a program that would ask private citizens to collect people at area churches and transport them.
• identifying more than 700 shelters and planning the locations for the remaining sites.
• outlining patient movement details and determining how to set in motion existing immunization plans.
• establishing a command structure that would employ up to 800 searchers.
• identifying existing landfills capable of accepting hazardous waste and outlining debris removal plans.

One important result of the exercise was the understanding among agencies at all levels of the seriousness of such an event. “A White House staffer was briefed on the exercise,” said van Heerden. “There is now a far greater awareness in the federal government about the consequences of storm surges.”

Re-test

Soon, agencies will have even more storm data to utilize in their response plans.

“A second Hurricane Pam Exercise is planned for this summer,” said van Heerden. “Agencies will be able to expand on aspects of response and recovery that were not explored before.”

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Contact Marybeth Pinnsoneault | LSU University Relations
Highlights Team
Summer 2005

Related Links
LSU Office of Public Safety Severe Weather
Hurricane Pam animation
National Oceanographic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Hurricane Center
Flagship Agenda
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