GEO 499 students share research with Senate aides

For geosciences major Anne-Marie Barrett '03, a hurricane hitting the coast of North Carolina would not be a natural disaster. But if a hurricane — or a flood or an earthquake — struck the city of Raleigh, it would be something to worry about.

Barrett and six other students — from the fall 2000 class GEO 499: Dealing with Natural Disasters, taught by professor Gregory van der Vink GS '83 — traveled to Washington, D.C., April 2 to present their original research to the Senate Natural Hazards Caucus.

The caucus, chaired by Sens. John Edwards (D-N.C.) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), was founded a year ago to explore methods local, state and federal government agencies can use to better prepare for and to help mitigate the costs of natural disasters. About 25 senate staffers, as well as representatives from the American Geophysical Union, the American Geological Institute and the American Meteorological Society attended the presentation.

In the class, students examined national preparation for earthquakes, floods and hurricanes, as well as the political implications of natural disasters. Each student chose a topic to study and worked in teams from the start of the year through the first two months of the spring semester assembling and analyzing data and formulating their results.

"It was a really good class because it gave you the ability to think about things the way policymakers do," Andy Gaies '01 said.

One of the class' key findings was the identification of "sleeper areas," regions that are overdue for a flood, hurricane or earthquake but have disproportionately less funding than the likelihood of one hitting would suggest.

In her presentation, Nathalie Guimard '01 explained to the caucus the challenges a flood could present to unprepared states on the floodplain.

States tend to allocate funding for emergency preparedness based on their recent experience, Barrett explained. "But the last 10 years are not at all representative of what the last hundred years were like," she said. Comparing the average cost of flood damage in the last 10 years to that of the past century, the class concluded that states like Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi are overdue for serious flooding.

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"At some point, it's natural for the laws of probability to go back and even out," Barrett said. "Texas is going to get nailed. The same for Louisiana and Mississippi."

Eleanor Pearson '01 identified sleeper areas that could be awakened by serious flooding. Barrett conducted a similar analysis for earthquakes. An earthquake is not very likely to shake cities like New York, Boston, St. Louis and Mem-phis, but if one did hit, the results would be disastrous, Barrett said. She explained the results of her study by pointing to the high concentration of "stuff" — people, buildings and wealth — in these areas.

After meeting with the caucus, the students briefed the staff director of the House Science Committee.

Van der Vink has led past GEO 499 classes to present their results to Washington policymakers, but he said he is particularly proud of this year's class. "We came up with some findings that could easily benefit the nation," he said.

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"Washington is the Super Bowl of professional presentations," he added. "[The students] did just great."

It was the students' commitment to studying natural disaster preparedness that made the presentation such a success, said van der Vink, who also serves as director of planning at the Washington-based Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology.

Students in the class agreed that their findings were very much their own. "[Van der Vink] knew the path that he thought we should go on but he stepped back and let us get things wrong . . . and get to our conclusions ourselves," Gaies said.

"It's like a real world situation," Barrett said. "He just guided us through the process of finding solutions."

"I really enjoyed translating work in the classroom into a real life situation," said class member Daniel Fuller '03. "You write all these papers and you work on all this stuff, but you never really find it's for any purpose."

"It's great to do something that's not just for practice," he said.