DamsDam-breach simulation software helping communities plan for emergencies
Two days after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, 70,000 residents in the vicinity of the Guajataca Dam were urged to evacuate as a precaution. Heavy rains were rapidly filling up the island’s 36 dams. Without clearer data, local authorities could only plan for the worst-case scenario. The Guajataca Dam, which holds more than 11 billion gallons of water, was on the verge of uncontrolled overflowing and could cause great devastation to the area downstream. These are challenges emergency managers face when they do not have reliable information.
Two days after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, 70,000 residents in the vicinity of the Guajataca Dam were urged to evacuate as a precaution. Heavy rains were rapidly filling up the island’s 36 dams. Without clearer data, local authorities could only plan for the worst-case scenario. The Guajataca Dam, which holds more than 11 billion gallons of water, was on the verge of uncontrolled overflowing and could cause great devastation to the area downstream.
These are challenges emergency managers face when they do not have reliable information. Several days after the precautionary evacuation order, a more accurate emergency picture of the situation emerged that did not warrant more evacuations. S&T says that this was the result of a computer simulation system called Simulation-Based Decision Support System for Water Infrastructural Safety (DSS-WISE) Lite, jointly sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
The software can generate maps of inundation scenarios caused by dam or levee failures by calculating the speed at which the water would advance, the depths, and the extent of land and infrastructure it would impact. Armed with such information, emergency managers can plan for dam/levee breach incidents. While the original software was released more than a decade ago, new features are continually added to keep it current. Additionally, the development team of DSS-WISE Lite has recently entered into a new contract with S&T and FEMA to develop even more capabilities for the software.
Updates to DSS-WISE Lite
A dam failure can happen at any time. To address population distribution at different times of the year, week and day, DSS-WISE Lite added a new feature called the Human Consequence Module. The module combines flood simulation results with census block population data from the Census Bureau and gridded nighttime and daytime population data from LandScan USA.
“This global population distribution data enables decision makers to prepare more precise emergency plans based on how many people will be impacted and how many will need to be evacuated,” said Mike Matthews, S&T Senior Program Manager. “Knowing the impacted population allows better allocation of resources, especially during larger events.”
