Storm decision-makingDisaster decision-support tool helps emergency managers ahead of storms
S&T’s Hurricane Evacuation (HURREVAC) extended (HV-X) platform integrates forecast and planning data to provide emergency managers with decision support tools for use in advance of and during tropical weather. S&T made the developmental version of HV-X available to select Texas emergency management users in preparation for Hurricane Harvey. Emergency managers, who needed every tool at their disposal to make critical decisions on evacuations, preparedness, and response, found HV-X helpful.
Hurricane Harvey started out as a tropical wave from the coast of Africa in early August. After weakening while traveling between Africa and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, Harvey entered the Gulf of Mexico on 23 August and reorganized into a tropical depression. In just 56 hours, Harvey grew into a Category 4 hurricane. On 25 August 2017, Hurricane Harvey made landfall with winds of 130 mph near Rockport, Texas, and over the ensuing days produced over 50 inches of rain inland.
With such an unprecedented storm barreling towards them, emergency managers wanted, needed, and used every tool at their disposal to make critical decisions on evacuations, preparedness, and response. One of those tools was the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) Hurricane Evacuation (HURREVAC) extended (HV-X) platform.
S&T says that the HV-X platform integrates forecast and planning data to provide emergency managers with decision support tools for use in advance of and during tropical weather. Development began in 2013 and, since then, S&T has identified the need for a comprehensive hurricane decision platform that encompasses all phases of planning and evacuations. Collaborating with FEMA via the National Hurricane Program (NHP) Technology Modernization initiative, DHS S&T worked to streamline the currently available HURREVAC storm tracking and decision platform. The result of this collaboration is HV-X.
S&T made the developmental version of HURREVAC-eXtended (HV-X) available to select Texas emergency management users in preparation for Hurricane Harvey. The platform and two platform development team members from Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory (MIT-LL) deployed to the National Response Coordination Center (NRCC) at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) headquarters on Friday, 25 August.
The deployed development team supported HV-X use, monitored functionality, and answered questions both from users in Texas and at FEMA headquarters. In addition, developers added or modified products as desired by FEMA for Hurricane Harvey.
“It was a stress test of sorts in the sense we expected some heavy usage from our test group of users inside and outside of Texas,” said S&T Program Manager Darren Wilson. “FEMA HQ and Regional National Hurricane Program Management reported the test version of HV-X that was up and running performed well leading up to and throughout Hurricane Harvey.”
