Module 6 Lab

NARRATOR: Hi students. Module six lab has us looking at the impacts of hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.  So, hurricane Katrina 2005 and how it impacted Pass Christian Mississippi specifically and hurricane Sandy 2012 and how it impacted Mantoloking in New Jersey. So, we're using Google Maps not Google Earth this time. Google Maps helps us very easily in an online format look at some historical imagery and we've also provided you with some resources to look at, including to begin with, we're going to look at the Mississippi Coast site and there you will have a series of photos of before and after for a bunch of different addresses, but we are focusing on these four addresses. And here I've pulled out a couple of them to look at as an example. The first one is 309 formerly Beach Boulevard and now East Scenic Drive. So when you do your search put in 309 East Scenic Drive Pass Christian Mississippi. I'm going to switch to-before we do that-the before and after picture clearly shows you know a devastated house site right after Katrina and we're going to look-use Google Maps to look at the street view. The current street view. So very simple. We're going to look at these four addresses or you will. I'm just going to show you a couple of examples. The second one I'll show you is the Inn by the sea which is nearby. And so this is what it looked like prior to Katrina and then this is what it looked like afterwards and you can use google maps to see that. Also, I'm going to switch to Google Maps now. We've got 309 East Scenic Drive and Pass Christian lined up. I'm going to just, all you do is click on this box in the right-hand corner to go to street view. This is what this address looks like now. So that gives you an idea of how this address has fared. 

Then the other one-so there's four of them-this is a second one. I just wanted to highlight...I'm sorry this should be 900 Village Lane which is over here. And so, we're looking at this big condo building and we're going to zoom down a little bit, and we're going to go to the street view and when you go to street view you can also see more dates and we're going to be using those more in the New Jersey example but if we go to 2007 on this one, this is what it looked like after Katrina. It's a big giant empty slab. That was all that was left of most of the properties and so-and then the current view you just saw-So the question number two asks you to look at the neighborhood around this condo building which includes you know a several block area so we'll say this viewpoint. And look at how many empty house sites there are to get an assessment of the level of rebuilding that's taken place in this area. The evidence is in the empty slabs that are left behind so one two three count them in these different lots to get an idea of how many there are compared to how many rebuilt houses there are in the area. So anyway, that gives you an idea of what you do for number two. I am going to go back to the worksheet for a minute. So we've covered questions numbers one and two. 

So, looking at that data on Google Maps helps us to get an idea of how quickly in 20 years, so a long time since Katrina, it's 20 years this year, how much redevelopment has taken place in this particular community. So you know homeowners have to take into account a whole bunch of  decision-making factors when they consider whether they want to rebuild their property or if they can or not. And so, what are some of the reasons why people might not return to this place? And so think about those four choices and make a choice out of those. Then we're going to travel to Mantoloking, New Jersey and there you are given a before and after a picture of the impact on this community, which is on a barrier island. Some of you are familiar, I'm sure. So you would click on this a changed coastline in New Jersey, and you'll see the before and after pictures to see how things have changed and the footprint of what happened which was that the storm surge of-I'll see if I can switch to a different site successfully. Okay, this is the before and after. So hopefully you can see this, but Hurricane Sandy's storm surge was also extremely powerful, and it breached the barrier island right at Mantoloking and this bridge the Mantoloking Bridge which connected the barrier island to the mainland, which was a pretty new bridge apparently built in 2005. 

So what you need to look at for this question is how many of these houses that we can see in the bottom view in this footprint of the breach which is really all of this picture are just not there in the after picture which is this one. So the before picture assess how many houses you can see, then compare with which ones are missing here. So assess how many are completely gone, completely gone. Not just apparently damaged but completely gone in the after picture, and that's what we're asking for there. So I'm going to go back to the worksheet. After you've done that you go to Google Maps, and we've given you some addresses to find so we'll go to 1109 Ocean Avenue in Mantoloking first and-showing you what I think I'm showing you on the screen-okay, so we're going to Mantoloking, and we're going to this particular house, but we're looking at the stretch of shoreline between this property and where the road to the bridge meets ocean avenue, and we're looking on this the ocean side of the road that we're that's what we're focusing on.  So if we go to street view here, we're particularly interested in the next question on this particular house. Did it survive? Did it not survive? So that's that question. So you would, and you can see the more dates that you can go to here to assess whether that property survived or not. 

We are also going to put in 1133 which is the property right next to the bridge, so obviously that would have been very, very badly impacted because it was right there where that breach happened. We're going to look at that stretch. So if we do the street view, there we can see we have an empty lot at the present time If you maneuver here you can travel along with this bicyclist along that stretch all the way up to our 1109 address and there's about 10 houses I believe in between the two properties, and we can look at them in these different dates so 2013 is one of the dates that the lab asked you to look at so we can go back up to 1109, see what's happening in 2013 on this stretch of the road between the road and the ocean where all those houses once were. And we can look at the progress at different times as redevelopment takes place and then the three dates that you'll be asked to go to our October 2013, July 2019, and June 2022 and make an assessment of the progress based on the number of houses that are being rebuilt. These are really big houses too. Okay. So that's really the crux of what we're doing here. So those New Jersey questions really have to do with looking at those dates and deciding what's going on during those dates and the last two questions, number nine, asks you to go to Google Maps and look from look down from vertical and assess using this image. Look at the present day width of the beach. So this is the property line behind these houses. This is like a dune area with vegetation. This is the beach. This is how much beach there is right now, and then look at that before and after image and compare how wide the beach was before Hurricane Sandy. 

Obviously, look at how devastated it was after Hurricane Sandy and look at it now and think about like how has it gotten to the point it's at right now. What could have been done to provide these folks with this beach. So the very last question asks about, asks you to just compare the two communities we've looked at. So, which one had the most investment for rebuilding in the years after each storm? So, you know, each homeowner has to make individual decisions about returning and financial decisions obviously are really at the top of the list. And then the community and the jurisdiction has to have the funds available to repair all the infrastructure. So roads, bridges, all the other things that are needed for comfortable life on a barrier island or on the shoreline. So a lot goes into this redevelopment. And so a little bit of thought about like what it's taken, how much time it's taken, how much investment has taken place. And maybe think, you know, you just have to say which one, but think about like what factors might go into the reasoning why one community might redevelop faster than another one after a big disaster. So that's it. If you have questions, please reach out. We've corrected one error in a question. And so hopefully there aren't any others. Reach out if you find any issues, and this is a new lab, by the way. So if you see anything, please let me know. Okay. Thanks for listening.