Structure Damage

    For this week's assignment, I completed a small part of a post-disaster evaluation for an area of coastal New Jersey that was affected by Hurricane Sandy.


    The image above depicts the coastal area near Atlantic City, New Jersey where the hurricane made landfall before the storm. Outlined in grey is the study area for completing a structural damage analysis. After overlaying the parcel information, you can see the outlines of each property within the study area. I switched back and forth between the Pre-Storm and Post-Storm images to determine the damage level for each structure on each parcel.
    With the key provided above, you can see the differing structure damage levels for each parcel within the study area as I saw fit to code them. Most of the severely damaged or destroyed structures seem to be closer to the coastline on initial inspection. To determine the damage level based on proximity to the coastline we will need to add a polyline to the image and create buffer zones. I went back to the Pre-Storm image to create the polyline around where the water met the shore. I then added three separate buffer zones. The first buffer went out 100 meters, the second 200 meters, and the third 300 meters. This allowed for a count of how many structures were damaged and at what level within specified distances from the coastline.
    I do not believe that this analysis is 100% accurate, however, my analysis is provided below.

Structure Damage Category

Count of Structures

0-100 m from coastline

Count of Structures

100-200 m from coastline

Count of Structures

200-300 m from coastline

No Damage

0

7

35

Affected

4

9

5

Minor Damage

0

15

5

Major Damage

2

5

0

Destroyed

6

4

0

Totals

12

40

45












    Based on this analysis, within 100 meters of the coastline, 50% of the structures are destroyed and 67% of them show damage on some level. Between 100 and 200 meters from the coastline 10% of the structures are destroyed while 60% of them show some level of damage. Between 200 and 300 meters from the coastline none are destroyed and only 11% of the structures show evidence of damage.

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