Contact: Jeanne Kouhestani FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(202) 482-6090 10/23/95
CDR Gary Van Den Berg
(813) 828-3310, ext. 3053
A new laser-based hydrographic survey system flown aboard a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration helicopter has dramatically decreased the time needed to assess hurricane damage to marine navigation areas, the Commerce Department agency announced today. Obstructions, sunken ships and other safety hazards caused by hurricane-force winds and waves can be located by the airborne system 10 times faster than by traditional shipboard methods.
After Hurricane Opal battered the Florida panhandle, the Scanning Hydrographic Operational Lidar Survey (SHOALS) system was dispatched to the Florida and Alabama coasts to assess storm damage to federal navigation and shore protection projects in those areas.
"We did a survey at East Pass in Destin, Fla., and covered three square kilometers in about an hour," NOAA Corps pilot Ensign Debbie Barr said. "We've been using SHOALS for about two years, but this was our first post-hurricane survey. It has proven how valuable this technology is in quickly pinpointing navigational hazards."
Survey results were ready approximately five hours after the Destin flight, identifying locations within the navigation project that require dredging and areas along the jetty where jetty stones were displaced by huge waves. SHOALS will also be used to conduct beach and near-shore surveys to assess shoreline erosion resulting from the hurricane.
SHOALS can survey up to eight square kilometers per hour, at a speed of 60 knots, which is more than 10 times faster than using conventional shipboard echo sounders. Survey data are processed in near-real-time in the field, resulting in three-dimensional products.
"It is amazing how much area we can cover in a short period of time with this system," said Commander Gary Van Den Berg, NOAA Corps, who is the operations officer at NOAA's Aircraft Operations Center. "After Hurricane Opal, what SHOALS helped us safely accomplish in a few hours would have taken days by using traditional shipboard soundings. It's the latest and greatest in hydrographic survey technology. In fact, it's the only system available in the United States today that can do the work it does."
SHOALS was developed by the Waterways Experiment Station of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Optech Inc. of Toronto, a contractor to the Canadian government. NOAA's National Ocean Service developed its depth-processing software. The system is flown aboard a NOAA Aircraft Operations Center Bell 212 helicopter by NOAA pilots and crew, and operated by John E. Chance and Associates.
SHOALS was developed to meet the need for an accurate, rapid hydrographic surveying data collection and processing system that would assist the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in its mission of maintaining 25,000 miles of federally-authorized navigation channels throughout the U.S. The Army Corps acts as overall coordinator for government surveys; John E. Chance and Associates coordinates private surveys.
To date, SHOALS has been used by the federal government to survey more than 900 square kilometers, producing over 87 million soundings. Projects have been surveyed in Florida, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Maine, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Michigan. Over the year, SHOALS will conduct additional surveys in Mexico, along the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, the Great Lakes, and the Gulf of Mexico, for the Army Corps of Engineers, NOAA National Ocean Service, and the U.S. Navy.