DesignSafe Radio

Nick Mrzlak from Team Rubicon joins Dan Zehner to talk about this unusual disaster-relief organization. We learn about the group’s trick of teaming veterans and first responders and its mission to focus on the underserved. With his background of serving in the U.S. Navy, working as an emergency medical technician, teaching EMTs, and volunteering with FEMA, Mrzlak is skilled and eager to help. A volunteer with Team Rubicon since 2010, he’s worked in places like Haiti, where he trained local civilians as EMTs. He has worked full-time for Team Rubicon since December 2017. “There’s not much we can’t do,” Mrzlak says. Team Rubicon volunteers are a special breed. “A tribe,” Mrzlak laughs. In one of their first deployments, in Haiti, the Team Rubicon founders realized that pairing veterans and first responders made for especially effective teams. “These types of people want to help, and they have unique skills.” Plus, these particular volunteers crave a sense of purpose and community. Light and nimble, Team Rubicon bridges the gap between disaster and the arrival of established aid organizations, like FEMA. Mrzlak describes current work in the Houston area post-Harvey. 400-450 volunteers are still in the first phase of recovery: clearing debris, sawing down trees and hauling stuff away. They are mucking out homes, removing drywall and salvaging what’s possible – often for residents who do not have a lot to begin with. In these desperate situations, Mrzlak says, Team Rubicon volunteers form meaningful bonds with each other and with the people they help. Team Rubicon has 60,000 volunteers in the U.S. Mrzlak says 13,000 people have volunteered since Hurricane Harvey alone. In this year’s busy disaster season, teams are deployed in Texas, Puerto Rico, Florida, the Caribbean and in the Mexico City area. Mrzlak describes organization’s data-gathering and logistics. The group depends heavily on volunteers in affected regions, like local EMTs, firefighters and police. They also leverage help from corporate partners, like Home Depot, who can ship equipment and supplies to local stores. “We often set up operations in Home Depot parking lots,” Mrzlak explains. Other partners include Tyson Foods, Walmart, the National Fish and Wildlife Service, and Palantir – which provides software for mapping and tracking work orders and assets. Links from the episode: https://teamrubiconusa.org/response/capabilities-services/ https://teamrubiconusa.org/operation/operation-hard-hustle/#overview https://www.palantir.com/

Host Dan Zehner talks with Dr. Jamey Jacob of Oklahoma State University about his research on how tornadoes form using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)to gather data by flying through thunderstorms. This research has been going on since the 1960s, but most of us heard about it during the 1990s with the movie Twister. The real 'Toto' that inspired the movie is actually at the National Weather Service about 60 miles from Dr. Jacob's lab! To find out more about his research, follow him here: https://ceat.okstate.edu/weather-research-uavs-take-flight-osu

Host Dan Zehner talks with scientists whose jobs are forecasting and planning for stormsurge and flooding. Coastal engineer Cheryl Ann Blain works in the oceanography division in the Office of Naval Research. David Johnson is a professor of engineering and political science at Purdue University. At the Naval Research Lab in Mississippi, Blain develops storm surge models and forecasts with the ADCIRC tool. She discusses the history and importance of ADCIRC, one of the first hurricane modeling tools developed. It is used around the nation for regional forecasting and predicting local storm surge. ADCIRC makes relatively accurate predictions, usually within three days of the event. Blain discusses data that is used to build a forecast, including wind and topography data. She explains the trend for using ensembles of data, different groupings of info, which produce the “spaghetti plots” we see in hurricane forecasts. David Johnson agrees with Blain that some things, such as storm direction, are hard to predict because we don’t fully understand how hurricanes form. As a result, we still make guesses about what sorts of data should go into our models. One of projects Johnson works on is Louisiana’s coastal master plan project. Louisiana seeks to reduce flood risk and land loss, so policy-makers and scientists are trying to determine how factors like changing climate, population and ground subsidence will affect the region. To plan, they develop multiple scenarios and estimate risk, depending on various strategies, such as building levies or wetlands. Planners weigh priorities, which are often in conflict. For example, building a levee takes years; so should the state first dedicate itself to elevating houses? Such planning is not limited to the Gulf Coast. New Jersey and New York, after Superstorm Sandy, are making similar plans. Johnson and Blain discuss how national infrastructure is affected by storm surge affects, including NASA, which has many coastal installations. They discuss how levees prevent river flooding but then prevent natural distribution of river sediments – a natural process that creates protective coastal wetlands. In Louisiana, planners must manage river flooding as well as stormstorm flooding. Johnson and Blain discuss why it is not possible for the US to replicate the success of the Netherlands, when it comes to preventing flooding and sea inundation.

DesignSafe Radio host Dan Zehner catches up with Dr. John Vidale, renowned geophysicist and seismologist. Until recently, Vidale directed the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. Now he directs the Southern California Earthquake Center at USCCS. He discusses highlights of his research career. As a college physics student, he became enamored with geology – taking 11 geology courses in his senior year — and went on to study geophysics. He discusses the PNSN study called IMUSH, Imaging Magma Under St. Helens. His team uses various excitation sources to image and map the three-dimensional structure of underground features, including the large magma chamber, under Mount St. Helens, Mount Adams and Mount Rainer. It is the most comprehensive study of the geology under a chain of volcanos, involving numerous institutions and agencies. Also at the University of Washington, Vidale worked on the M9 Project (https://hazards.uw.edu/geology/m9/), a large, NSF-funded study exploring the potential impact of a large earthquake in the Pacific Northwest. (M9 stands for a “magnitude 9” earthquake.) Part of that PNSN study included measuring the vibrations made by Seattle Seahawks fans at CenturyLink Field (https://www.livescience.com/57441-seattle-seahawks-stadium-seismology.html)– which were especially strong after a play by Marshawn Lynch, the infamous Beast Quake (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfdJqpbUPIE&t=8s). Vidale discusses streaming data real time and educating the public about earthquake warning systems. In his new job as director of the Southern California Earthquake Center, one project he’ll undertake is developing a physical model, a hazard map, of the Southern California fault system. A large, multi-institutional undertaking, the idea is to understand the geophysical properties of the region in order to predict behaviors of the earth. Vidale says supercomputing simulations play a major role in this work. For young scientists, Vidale recommends studying chemistry and physics and learning computer tools, which are crucial for modern science experiments. In general, he warns against fake science and extreme claims. He recommends vetting information about earthquakes with reputable agencies such as the United States Geological Service and local emergency managers.

For two engineering undergrads from Puerto Rico, working on the beach is a dream job. In this week’s edition of DesignSafe Radio, host Dan Zehner meets up with these two students, who took part in NHERI’s 2017 Research Experiences for Undergraduates program. Civil engineering students Hector Colon Delacruz and Peter Rivera Casillas talk to host Dan Zehner about their summer working at Oregon State University’s Hinsdale Wave Lab, one of NHERI’s eight experimental sites. Both students attend the University of Puerto Rico. Hector Colon De la Cruz, a senior, plans to earn his master’s degree in coastal engineering. Doing hands-on research at OSU confirmed his desire to be a coastal engineer. He wants to explore using mangrove plantings to prevent coastal erosion. Similarly, Peter Rivera Casillas, a surfer, says his summer experience convinced him earn an advanced degree in a profession that involves the sea: coastal engineering or oceanography. In the Hinsdale Wave Lab, the students worked on several research projects, including a multi-university effort that examined how tsunami waves are affected by conical islands. Much of their work involved creating and validating computer models; they describe using Matlab and a new tool called Celeris (https://arxiv.org/abs/1611.05984) , an open-source program that can compute wave paths, and visualize them, at the same time. Peter, who had experience in coding, helped Hector learn Matlab over the course of the summer. As for their experiences in natural disasters, Peter describes surfing in 12-foot foot hurricane swells – and getting dragged out to sea by the current. Fortunately, he was able to reach shoreline rocks and climb out. Hector describes his own sea-going scare when a sudden series of waves appeared and threatened to capsize his small boat. Waves can be scary -- but not as scary as tornados, they say!

In this special episode on NHERI's response to Hurricane Harvey, I talk with Dr. Brian Phillips from the University of Maryland who traveled with the NHERI team from the University of Florida (led by Dr. Forrest Masters and his colleagues) to deploy truck mounted sensor towers ahead of the storm. They were able to capture ground level wind speed measurements of the eye of the storm as it hit land in Rockport, Texas as a Category 4 hurricane. Their data and other reconnaissance data is available here: https://www.designsafe-ci.org/rapid/

Today on this special episode as Hurricane Irma comes closer, we talk with Tom Iovino, Public Information Director at Florida Department of Health in Manatee County about hurricane preparedness, where to find quality information, and the latest on Irma as the storm approaches. You can find his recommendations for information below: National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/#Irma Florida Emergency Management: http://www.floridadisaster.org/Preparedness/

Profile of Elaina Sutley(https://ceae.ku.edu/elaina-j-sutley), structural engineer and assistant professor of civil engineering at the University of Kansas. In her research, she focuses on multiple aspects of designing hazard-proof wood structures, including seismic safety in low-income housing. Sutley relates her “origin story” about becoming a structural engineer — with a public policy bent. She relates the influence of the noted wood-frame researcher John van de Lindt, the principal investigator on the NEESwood (https://www.nsf.gov/news/newsmedia/neeswood/resources3.jsp) project, a watershed study that demonstrated the resilience of tall, wood-framed structures (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoXl6-8UUrM). Studying under van de Lindt at the University of Alabama inspired Sutley to enter the field of hazard engineering. (van de Lindt now teaches at Colorado State University: http://www.engr.colostate.edu/~jwv) Sutley discusses current topics in wood-frame research: rocking wall panels, light frames, CLT (cross-laminated timber), and seismic retrofitting of “soft story” buildings. Although wood is a strong and sustainable construction material, she says architects and construction companies often do not understand the benefits of wood construction. Researchers in her field like to say the biggest challenges to wood-frame construction are “fire, water, and ignorance.” As an early career faculty member, Sutley is eager to get involved in the NHERI community. She attended NHERI’s inaugural Summer Institute program (https://www.designsafe-ci.org/community/news/2017/nheri-summer-institute) in San Antonio this summer. She also is a member of the NHERI User Forum (https://www.designsafe-ci.org/facilities/nco/governance/user-forum), which helps ensure engineering researchers are able to find the resources they need from NHERI’s experimental facilities. Sutley also is active in the ASCE community and is chair of wood structures division. Lastly, Sutley relates a dramatic story of getting caught in tornado. Be sure to tune in!

On this special episode covering Hurricane Harvey and the NHERI network's commitment to science during this extreme event, host Dan Zehner talks with Dr. Clint Dawson of the University of Texas at Austin about his team's work in storm surge forecast modelling over his career. They have developed one of only two high fidelity models of coastal storm surge that experts use for forecasting and local officials rely upon for their disaster response. You can find out more about Dr. Dawson's work and the most up to date storm surge forecast for Hurricane Harvey here: http://chg.ices.utexas.edu/

In this episode, host Dan Zehner talks with UC San Diego’s Darren McKay, development engineer and operations manager for LHPOST, the world’s largest outdoor shake table. The shake table, part of the UCSD Jacobs School of Civil Engineering, is one of NHERI’s 8 experimental facilities. At McKay’s site, researchers “build big.” They construct full-scale and near-full scale structures, often multiple-story buildings, to test designs for seismic reliability. McKay introduces three engineering students who did summer research at the facility as part of NHERI’s research experiences for undergraduates program. The REU students relate their experiences doing hands-on things like setting up instrumentation, applying sensors and analyzing data -- and using construction power tools for the first time. A little scary! And find out what NOT to wear when spending the summer climbing in and around a large-scale test structure. Also, learn why safety is a top priority at the facility, when McKay tells anecdotes about engineers don’t follow safety protocols. Feeling goulish, host Dan Zehner asks everyone to tell their favorite natural disaster story – including the one about a plane-ride through a typhoon. Lastly, find out about the engineering research capabilities of the LHPOST shake table, where multi-university research projects are the order of the day – even if the schools are football rivals like Oregon State and the University of Washington.