COMPUTING KATRINA
Collaboration merges expertise in hurricane research and high performance computing

LSU’s experts in hurricane research and computational science are working in a collaboration to save lives. The Center for Computation & Technology (CCT) has been working with researchers at the Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes (CSPHIH) to better prepare for storms through visualization and
modeling.

Experience with a storm as devastating as Hurricane Katrina motivates this group of scientists to make a difference. The collaboration brings together groups in high performance computing, sensor networks and visualization as well as application communities in GIS, remote sensing, and coastal and atmospheric modeling. The team believes that their forecasts of such catastrophic events, coupled with adaptable emergency response, could reduce casualties and save billions.

“I still can’t forget what I saw,” says Hassan Mashriqui, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering. “People died there, and we’re working like crazy to figure it out,” said Mashriqui.
Director of the Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes Ivor Van Heerden is working on a forensic study to determine why the levees breached. “We’re getting aerial video of the breaches and looking for digital clocks left behind to find out how the flooding spread,” says Van Heerden.

Paul Kemp, director of the natural systems modeling group at the LSU School of the Coast and Environment also has been studying the levees. “We are trying to educate people so they evacuate.” says Kemp.

Mashriqui explained the critical nature of the research at a recent collaboration meeting. “The fire department was using our forecast to rescue people the night before the wall broke. They took our map, and it showed which part would be flooded.”

This type of application is just the kind of project that computing experts at the CCT are interested in getting involved in. CCT Director Edward Seidel believes that the computational science and Grid expertise at the Center can contribute. “The technologies like those created in our GridLab project can improve the way that we manage and automate the many simulations needed,” says Seidel. “The LONI network can move the data to where it’s needed for visualization.”

Seidel also believes that funding agencies and vendors will be likely to support the hurricane research of the collaborative team. “We can build a community and get vendors engaged,” says Seidel. “If we pull together weather, coastal and computational communities, agencies like the NSF will be much more ready to receive our proposals.”

Researchers showcased visualization techniques for hurricane research at Supercomputing 2005, or SC|05, an internationally recognized computing conference held in Seattle in early November. Their demonstration compared simulations with actual observations, storm surge measurements from sensors, and data from aerial mapping and satellite images. –Jennifer Hughes

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LSU Center for Computation & Technology

from Storm Issue 2005