In response to the recent flood near Kerville, Texas, NASA deployed two aircraft to assist the state and local authorities in the ongoing recovery operation.
The aircraft is part of the reaction of NASA’s disasters, active to support the emergency response to the flood and is working closely with the Texas Division of Emergency Management, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and human groups save children and get the children.
Constant Cloud-Cover has made it difficult to obtain clear satellite imagery, so the disasters have coordinated with NASA’s Airborn Science program at NASA’s Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston to operate a series of flights to collect comments of affected areas. NASA is sharing these figures directly with emergency response teams to assist their discovery and rescue efforts and decision making and resource allocation.
The high -altitude WB -57 aircraft operated by NASA Johnson departed from Ellington Field on 8 July to conduct an aerial survey. The aircraft is equipped with dynamite (day/night airborne motion imagers for terrestrial environment).
In addition, the agency’s uninhabited aerial vehicle synthetic aperture radar (UAVSAR) Edwards, exiting NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California, is riding on a gulfstream III. Managed by the agency’s jet propulsion laboratory in southern California, the UAVSAR team is planning to collect comments on Guadalup, San Gabriel and Colorado rivers basins on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Because UAVSAR is unable to detect optical sensors that can enter the vegetation to spot water, the team aims to mark the flood limit to help understand the amount of damage within the communities.
Flights are being coordinated with FEMA, Texas Division of Emergency Management, and local respondents to ensure that data is given quickly to those who decide on the ground. The collected imagery will be sent to NASA’s disaster response coordination system.
Additionally, the program of disasters, which is part of the Science Division of NASA, is working to produce flood space and severity and maps and data to damage buildings and infrastructure. These figures are being shared on the Mapping portal on NASA disasters as they become available.
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Liz Vollock/Aries Cake
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
elizabeth.a.vlock@nasa.gov / aries.keck@nasa.gov
