In preparation for the upcoming hurricane season, North Carolina Emergency Management and East Carolina University have teamed with representatives of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NOAA’s National Weather Service to review the latest tools and trends in forecasting and decision making for storm surge and river floods.
Researchers from RENCI at ECU, headed by Director Tom Allen, and ECU’s Center for Natural Hazards Research, led by Director Jamie Kruse, will facilitate the conference. Ken Gallupi and Jessica Proud Losego of RENCI will contribute technical assistance.
Presentations will include information from the National Hurricane Center, the NWS Southeast River Forecast Center, and local NWS offices. Emergency managers, the NWS, academic partners, and representatives from media organizations will have an opportunity to discuss local forecasting needs with the goal of further improving tools used to understand and predict flooding and storm surge.
Keynote speaker Rachel Davidson of the University of Delaware will discuss new approaches to evacuation. Davidson, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, researches natural disaster risk modeling and is a mentor for the Enabling the Next Generation of Hazards and Disaster Researchers program funded by the National Science Foundation.
The conference will conclude with the 2011 Hurricane Season Outlook.
For additional information, contact Donna Kain at ECU (kaind@ecu.edu 252-717-9330) or David Weldon, NCEM Area 2 Coordinator (dweldon@ncem.org).
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