Hurricane Sandy Damage Assessmemt

1. Structural Damage Map View

This map shows the points I created during the damage assessment. Each point marks a structure that I manually added using the post-storm imagery.

2. General Steps Used to Complete the Damage Assessment

I started by creating a layer for the FEMA impacted states using a selection from the U.S. boundaries. After that, I mapped Hurricane Sandy’s path using the SandyTrack table. I converted the table to points and then connected those points into a line showing the full track of the storm. I added wind speed and pressure as labels to help visualize intensity.Then I moved into processing pre- and post-storm imagery. I created two separate mosaic datasets from the imagery folders and used the swipe tool to compare conditions before and after the storm. This made it easier to identify where structures were damaged or missing.

For the damage assessment, I created a new feature class and set up domains to categorize each structure I added. I manually placed each point and filled out the attribute table with the correct damage type, structure category, and hazard impact. I also created a line representing the coastline and used that to measure distances from each structure.

To wrap it up, I summarized the number of damage points within distance intervals from the coast and created a bar graph to show how damage varied with proximity to the shoreline.

3. Final Results

The results showed that structures closest to the shoreline experienced the most damage. The 0 to 100 meter zone had the highest number of destroyed and heavily damaged buildings. As the distance increased, the number of damaged structures decreased. This supported the idea that storm surge and coastal flooding were the biggest threats in this area.

This lab pulled together a lot of important GIS skills. I used domains, data collection, imagery analysis, and distance-based summaries to assess the storm’s impact. It gave me a good understanding of how GIS can be used to evaluate damage and support disaster recovery efforts.