Volume 3, Issue 2

August 2008

PDC Highlights

PDC Project Office Opened in Hanoi: Pacific Disaster Center opens a project office in Hanoi. With this new Vietnam office and a longstanding presence in Bangkok, Thailand, PDC is strengthening its ties to Southeast Asia.

PDC Contributes to Olympics Safety

While many agencies are carefully planning for security from other types of threats during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, PDC has contributed imagery layers representing the history of natural disasters in the region. These visualized records of natural disasters will support efforts to be prepared for all possible hazards. The U.S. NGA has issued a “2008 Olympics Natural Hazard Graphic” poster incorporating six hazard maps and other data.

New Editions of PDC Atlas Released

Both the Asia Pacific and Hawaii editions of PDC’s Natural Hazards and Vulnerabilities Atlas are very popular tools for disaster managers and for the general public. With the recent release of new versions of both editions of the Atlas, many additional layers of visualized hazard data have been made available. To see what is new in each edition, scroll to the bottom of the About Atlas page, or launch the Atlas and explore.

Cyclone Nargis in Burma (Myanmar)

Pacific Disaster Center contributed to the acquisition and processing of imagery for maps of the devastation caused by Tropical Cyclone Nargis when it crossed southern Burma on May 2. Maps based on PDC-processed imagery were used by relief agencies throughout the initial weeks of the response.

Ramping-up to Global Service

The technical staff of Pacific Disaster Center has been working toward the long term goal of expanding the Center’s data holdings beyond Hawaii and the Asia Pacific region to a global range. Major steps have been taken on this Global Hazards/Global Risk and Notification Data project. In collaboration with many data-collection partners, including GLIDE, the International Charter “Space and Major Disasters,” and CRED, the essential data are now being analyzed and installed. In July, with the help of a PDC intern, hazard data for Africa was geocoded, and analysis was started.

Modeling Scenario of Crashing Satellite

In February, when U.S. Satellite NROL-21 became disabled and started its uncontrolled descent toward the earth, disaster managers and space experts fully expected that the satellite would be completely destroyed on re-entry, but they had to prepare for all eventualities. PDC was asked by the Hawaii National Guard and State Civil Defense to model a worst case scenario of the satellite striking the ground. PDC created the model and established a new Web space, “Virtual Emergency Operations Center” (VEOC), to support coordination among the emergency responders. NROL-21 broke up in the atmosphere and caused no damage, but responding agencies were ready for anything.