NTL-ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT-ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT ; NTL-SAFETY AND SECURITY-Highway Safety ; NTL-GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS-GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS ;

Road fl ooding is a serious operational hazard for many low-lying areas across southern Louisiana. This hazard is especially acute for the region’s emergency evacuation routes, which must be accessible for safe evacuation prior to an approaching hurricane. Emergency managers and decision-makers need additional tools regarding the factors and conditions that contribute to inundated roads to mitigate the risk of fl ooding during hurricanes. Numerous factors contribute to road fl ooding, including storm speed and direction, tidal ranges, wind speed, and storm surge. Many of these factors are deterministic and can be derived from available coastal weather services. Hurricane storm characteristics are modeled by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) and provided as a geospatial data product distributed for approaching storms at specifi ed intervals.

US Transportation Collection