Newswise — With 2.2 million people without power, more than 80 percent of New Orleans under water and massive property destruction along the Gulf Coast, public officials and scientists struggle to restore basic services, rescue victims and begin the massive cleanup following Hurricane Katrina. University of Missouri-Rolla engineers and scientists are available to comment on several hurricane-related issues:
Infectious diseases -- Dr. David J. Westenberg, associate professor of biological sciences at UMR and an expert on infectious diseases, can discuss water-born illness and other possible complications resulting from the rising New Orleans flood water.
Power outages -- Dr. Badrul Chowdhury, professor of electrical and computer engineering at UMR and an expert on the nation's power grid, can discuss what needs to be done to restore power to the Gulf Coast's hardest-hit areas and how fuel cells or wind mills could keep the lights on in critical buildings.
Breached levees -- Dr. Rick Stephenson, professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering and an expert on levees along the Mississippi River, can discuss techniques used to reduce the pressure of the water on the levees beneath the water as engineers try to figure out how to plug the breach in New Orleans' levees.
Water pumping systems -- Dr. Chuck Morris, associate professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering, knows New Orleans' water pumping system well and can explain why the pumps failed and what steps need to be taken to drain the city.
Structural damage -- Dr. John Myers, assistant professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering, is an expert in designing structures to withstand high winds and can discuss why Katrina's high winds caused structures to fail.
Levee breaks, natural disasters -- Dr. J. David Rogers, the Karl F. Hasselmann Chair of geological engineering at UMR, is an expert on natural disasters, including hurricanes, and studies levee systems. Rogers was quoted in an Aug. 31 Wall Street Journal article as saying "levees open up so quickly there's nothing you can do from an engineering response. It'll be over within 10 minutes." So far, Rogers says, New Orleans has avoided a full-scale catastrophic failure of the levee system in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Off-shore oil production -- Dr. Shari Dunn-Norman, associate professor of geological and petroleum engineering at UMR, researches oil production and how pipelines react when placed in extreme situations. Her areas of expertise include: sub-sea pipeline leaks and repairs, offshore production facilities, and critical offshore infrastructure assessment.
Bloggers: the new ham radio operators? -- A generation ago, amateur ("ham" ) radio operators were a critical link in providing information during natural disasters. But in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, bloggers have assumed part of ham radio's traditional role, even though ham radio continues to play an important role in rescue and relief efforts, says Brian Buege, director of networks and computing at UMR and a licensed amateur radio operator.
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