As a result of two large rainfall events from Hurricanes Irene and Lee around the last week of August, 2011 and the first weeks of September, 2011, a large part of the northeast US from Virginia to New England has experienced devastating and historic levels of flooding. The intent of this award is to document the flood damage, performing reconnaissance with a team of RPI faculty and students, interacting with various agencies such as State DOT?s, USGS and FEMA, and producing a comprehensive report in the summer of 2012. A rapid response is required to obtain this highly perishable and valuable flood data. The field work will begin as soon as possible, most will have to be done in the next few months prior to winter weather. It may be possible to do some field work next spring 2012, such as follow up and documentation of interesting and important case studies. Work on the report will continue during this winter 2011-12, including coordination and cooperation with the agencies noted above. The intent is to produce a final report summer of 2012. The report will also reference and provide links to other reports and sources of data published by other agencies. Typical data collected will be hydrological, consisting of high water levels, flow quantities and flood recurrence intervals; geotechnical data required to do slope and landslide stability analyses; scour and erosion data related to bridge and dam failures; and documentation such as photography and LIDAR measurements. Much of this data will have been obtained by other agencies. Even conservative estimates of flood damage in upstate NY, Western New England and Northern PA regions are in the tens of billions of dollars. This flood damage must be documented. FEMA, as recently directed by Congress, is in the process of revising its flood mapping procedures, and these floods will likely have an impact on FEMA procedures and the National Flood Insurance Program. The potential impact on insurance rates for U.S. property owners is in the many billions of dollars. This event is historic, and much can be learned about hydrology, flooding, river flow, erosion and more. This once in a lifetime (we hope) event must be well documented and studied. The numbers are not in, but it is clear that many water bodies have exceeded all time recorded levels, and many have experienced 500 year floods.
This project dealt with the documentation of flood damage in upper New York state and surrounding states of Vermont, Connecticut and Massachusetts due to Hurricanes Irene and Lee. A public website was produced at northeastflooding.us documenting and archiving numerous articles, documents, and photos related to the flood damage caused by Hurricanes Irene and Lee. Links are provided to other sources of flood damage information. Numerous agencies were involved with flood damage assessment and recovery: Departments of Transportation for the states of NY, VT, CT and MA, FEMA, USGS, state environmental agencies and several other agencies. No single website can provide all the information relative to the flood damage, and the links can be helpful in locating additional information. The website will remain available for a minimum of five years, until late 2017. On August 28, 2011 Hurricane Irene made landfall on the coast of NJ, causing much less damage than expected to NJ and NYC and lower NY state. The storm moved to upper NY state and decreased to a tropical storm, however it caused record breaking amounts of rain and extensive flooding in upper NY, and the states of VT, CT and MA. About ten days later on September 8, 2011 Hurricane Lee made landfall and moved inland to upstate NY. It provided a "knockout punch", since soils were saturated, streams swollen from Irene, and caused the final demise of much infrastructure that was on the verge of failure due to Irene. The damage to upstate NY and the surrounding New England states was extensive, and many communities are still recovering from the storms. About a year later after Irene and Lee, Hurricane Sandy devastated NJ, NYC and lower NY state. The damage was extensive, impacting a highly populated area. However the damage to upstate NY and New England due to Sandy was slight, and worldwide attention shifted to Hurricane Sandy. Thus, the website produced should provide excellent documentation and be a repository of data of the flood damage due to Hurricanes Irene and Lee which greatly impacted upstate NY, VT, CT and MA.
