NASA has created and provided to emergency response organizations a detailed damage assessment map of the Bahamas based on satellite data after Hurricane Dorian hit the islands earlier this week.
For over a week, a response team from NASA’s Earth Science Disasters Program has worked to create maps of impacts and potential impacts from the storm and make them available to decision makers.
The new damage assessment map used satellite data from the European Union’s Sentinel-1 Copernicus instrument to identify areas (shown in red and yellow) that were likely most affected by the storm’s Category 5 winds and storm surge. The map was created by the Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in collaboration with the European Space Agency, the California Institute of Technology and the Earth Observatory of Singapore.
The region shown in the map is Marsh Harbour, a town in the Abaco Islands, a group of Bahamian islands and cays that form a 120-mile–long chain. Marsh Harbour is the commercial center of the Abacos.
NASA’s Disasters Program has also been contacted by the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency for assistance in providing high-resolution flood maps. That agency’s disaster response teams are attempting to reach inundated areas, many of which remain inaccessible. This type of map will give Bahamian officials a better understanding of flood impacts and where the help is most urgently needed. – Jim Schultz