Newswise — It's been almost one year since Hurricane Katrina hit land, triggering the catastrophic loss of life and damage of property along the coastlines of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) faculty experts are available to comment on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and lessons learned from the natural disaster.
David Jan Cowan is an architect and assistant professor of architectural technology in the Purdue School of Engineering and Technology at IUPUI. He teaches courses in residential and commercial construction as well as building systems. He is the University's faculty mentor of Engineers without Borders and has been involved with post disaster projects in New Orleans and in Indonesia. "Disasters typically leave many without homes, communities and familiar built environments. First responders to these disasters offer shelter in the form of temporary dwellings (e.g., tents), often followed by hasty, short-sighted attempts to provide more permanent living conditions (e.g., trailers).
"This second wave of response often falls short of providing a sense of community, local involvement, improved disaster resistant shelters and a direction focused upon sustainable and environmentally sensitive solutions. My area of research falls into this second, transitional phase and looks at providing forward looking, sustainable and green solutions for the victims of these disasters." " David Jan Cowan
David C. Dellacca, assistant professor of computer and information technology, School of Engineering and Technology, IUPUI, teaches network design and implementation, wireless and data communications, and wireless security.
"After coming to grips with the human tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, one can see a wealth of lessons to be learned from the devastation. From a business continuity and recovery perspective, those responsible for business operations must recognize the importance of protecting and backing up vital data and providing redundant communications methods. Businesses that had a reliable and secure distant backup system in place have been rewarded by being able to start again.
"The pivotal factor for businesses that chose to use offsite backups was just how distant those backups were from the physical address of the business. Many stories have been told of business following the right steps to secure their data, but their offsite backup location was within the same zip code; for an event on the scale of Katrina, that was simply too close. Those businesses without secure backups face closing their business forever or trying to recreate their business information, which is not always possible.
"The rebuilding effort has afforded opportunities for technologies like Wi-Fi, WiMax, and VoIP to find a national spotlight while providing critical communications and operations support. For sure, the flexibility of wireless communications/ wireless mesh solutions has been a saving grace to communication-challenged areas. Recovering businesses that had good data protection/ recovery plans and now can leverage available emerging communications methods have the best chance of survival while facing the challenges of rebuilding today and daily business tomorrow." - David C. Dellacca
Chris Thomas is a lecturer in earth sciences in the Purdue School of Science at IUPUI. Natural disasters are a main theme of an environmental geology course that Thomas teaches.
Thomas can discuss several topics, including what other cities are at risk for major disasters; whether natural disasters are getting worse or happening more; how faculty can incorporate lessons from Katrina as a launching point for discussions about other U.S. areas that face significant risk from natural disasters, and how Katrina has changed student perceptions about natural disasters.
"In Environmental Geology / Natural Hazard courses we go over a list of cities that are at high risk to a significant natural disaster—on the scale of eliminating the entire city like we saw in New Orleans (New Orleans was an example often taught about long before Katrina hit). Indianapolis is fairly safe from most natural hazards.
"(Are there) other lurking Katrinas? " It's not just Hurricanes. Instructors often cite these cities as being at risk over the next century to a major disaster or change: St. Louis, Memphis, Las Vegas, Seattle/Tacoma " earthquake; Seattle/Tacoma, Wyoming, Montana " volcanoes; New York City, Philadelphia " hurricanes; Eastern U.S. Coast " tidal waves; Florida; Philadelphia, New York City, Washington D.C., New Orleans " sea level rise from climate change; Phoenix, Las Vegas, Southern California " severe water shortages.
"Indianapolis--Safe from Nature or Disaster? At 700 feet above sea level and with a temperate climate, changes from global warming are minimal; abundant groundwater resources buffer long-term drought; the city has no commercial nuclear power plants to meltdown; (city is) far from a coastline to suffer hurricane-related storms or tsunami; earthquake risk is moderate to minimal; landslide hazards are minimal; historically volcanic ash rarely reaches this far east; and flat landscape reduces flash flooding risks.- Chris Thomas
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