In response to recent floods near Kerrville, Texas, NASA has deployed two planes to help national and local authorities in current recovery operations.
The plane is part of the response of the system for coordinating the response to NASA disasters, which is activated to support emergency interventions for floods and works in close collaboration with the Division of Texas of Emergency Management, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and humanitarian groups save children and GiveDirectly.
The persistent cloud coverage made it difficult to obtain clear satellite images, the disaster program therefore coordinated the NASA air science program at the NASA Space Flight Center in Houston to lead a series of flights to collect observations from the affected regions. NASA shares this data directly with emergency intervention teams to inform its research and rescue and rescue help efforts and resource allocation.
The high-altitude WB-57 plane operated by NASA Johnson left ELLINGTON FIELD on July 8 to conduct air investigations. The plane is equipped with the dynamite sensor (Day / Night Airborne Motion Imager for land environments).
In addition, the synthetic opening radar opening air vehicles uninhabited by the agency (UAVSAR) flies away from the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, aboard a Gulfstream III. Managed by the agency’s propulsion laboratory in the agency in southern California, the UAVSAR team plans to collect observations on the basins of the Guadalupe river, San Gabriel and Colorado on Thursday and Friday. Since Uavsar can penetrate the vegetation to identify water that optical sensors are unable to detect, the team’s objective is to characterize the extent of floods to help understand the amount of damage within communities.
Flights are coordinated with FEMA, the Texas emergency management division and local responders to ensure that the data is quickly provided to those that make decisions in the field. The collected imagery will be sent to the coordination system for the response to NASA disasters.
In addition, the disaster program, which is part of the NASA earth science division, strives to produce cards and data to assess the location and severity of floods in the region and damage to buildings and infrastructure. These data are shared on the NASA disaster mapping portal as they become available.
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Liz Vlock / Aries Keck
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
Elizabeth.a.vlock@nasa.gov / Aries.keck@nasa.gov
