Bobby Witkop (MAMA ’17) and Nelle D’Aversa (MAMA & MESM ’17) traveled to New Orleans, Louisiana, for the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting; the largest earth and space science meeting in the world.  

Bobby and Nelle presented their research at the late breaking session on Hurricanes Harvey, Maria and Irma. Bobby explained how to incorporate qualitative stakeholder knowledge on critical facilities into numerically based storm models while Nelle presented her major paper entitled “A GIS Inventory of Critical Coastal Infrastructure Land Use in Caribbean Developing States: Classification and Criteria Methodology”. There were also presentations on how Harvey impacted Houston’s pharmaceutical industry and oil refineries along with Hurricane Maria’s effects on earthquake detecting seismology labs in Puerto Rico. Apparently, communication systems designed to withstand nuclear blasts were taken offline by the storm.

After the first day of the conference, Bobby and Nelle had a New Orleans seafood dinner with MAF’s recent graduates Mark Zanowicz (MAM ‘16) and Katie Denman (MAMA ‘16).  Mark was recently promoted to be the Coast Guard’s Living Marine Resources Officer and was appointed to the Gulf Fishery Management Council.  The major paper he wrote last year for the MAM program on snapper regulations enabled him to recently steer the Coast Guard towards appropriate state management red snapper regulations.  Mark had an entire fried local snapper for dinner that night.

Later, Bobby met with local New Orleanians who showed him how high the water reached in the downtown area during Hurricane Katrina; you can still check the inundation level by examining the differing coloring of the bricks. He was told that Katrina changed New Orleans a lot; most importantly; many people left and did not come back. According to the local, the convention center hosting the AGU was built after Katrina as an improved version of the Superdome.  

On the final day of the conference, Nelle gave an oral presentation on her research during the session titled, 2017 Hurricane Season: Remote Sensing Informatics, Society and Engineering, and hydrology perspectives lightning on Wednesday, November 13th. The audience listened intently, especially to her powerful conclusion that furthering research such as hers, will enable coastal managers to prioritize and invest resources in adaptation strategies that reduce the risk of the infrastructure to environmental threats, increase resiliency, and ultimately aid in protecting the economies of Caribbean developing states.

To celebrate Bobby and Nelle shared shrimp po’boys, checked out Bourbon Street and listened to some fantastic blues.

Witkop presenting his poster during the AGU Fall Meeting poster session.

D’Aversa presenting his poster during the AGU Fall Meeting poster session.