case study on a tropical storm

PhilAWARE put to the test a week after hand over to the Philippine Government

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“o ur operations center was able to utilize [philaware] during the typhoon odette (rai) operations last december 2021. since the system is web-based and accessible online, even work from home personnel were able to monitor the typhoon using their individual philaware accounts and access information and data products .”.

– USEC Ricardo B. Jalad Executive Director, NDRRMC and Administrator, OCD

On Dec. 15, 2021, Tropical Storm Rai strengthened into a Super Typhoon faster than any other storm system in recent memory, going from category 2 to category 5 on theSaffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale in a matter of hours. The storm made landfall on the southern islands of the Philippines with violent force, leading to the evacuation of more than 400,000 residents, injuring at least 500 people, and causing 375 deaths, according to estimates from the Philippine Red Cross.

While the effects of Super Typhoon Rai—known as Typhoon Odette locally in the Philippines—were significant, the Philippine government’s preparation for, and response to the storm were enhanced by a newly deployed hazard monitoring and early warning tool, PhilAWARE. This system was recently developed by the University of Hawaiʻi’s Pacific Disaster Center (PDC), in partnership with the Philippines Office of Civil Defense (OCD). Based on PDC’s DisasterAWARE platform, PhilAWARE provides early warning and advanced modeling to support critical impact and potential needs information to aid rapid response.

Foreshadowing the importance PhilAWARE would play during response to Super Typhoon Rai, OCD’s Undersecretary Ricardo Jalad noted during his opening remarks at the Dec. 7 PhilAWARE handover ceremony that “this new platform will not just enhance our hazard monitoring and early warning but will even help us in seamless information sharing between disaster managers and decision-makers.” The system was implemented under OCD’s leadership in close partnership with the Philippine’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC). Funding support was provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA).

PhilAWARE Impact Summary

PhilAWARE provides critical information for decision making including national and provincial data, and new risk and vulnerability data. OCD’s access to this data through the PhilAWARE system proved critical to their response to Super Typhoon Rai, helping responders understand the extent of the storm impacts. Additionally, the ability of users to upload and share information products within the system allowed for more effective coordination between response stakeholders.

109+ Million

People in the Philippines covered by PhilAWARE

Hazard types monitored

Inhabited Islands

PAGASA flood hazards

Hazards reported and monitored via PhilAWARE

“While we were saddened by the death and destruction that Super Typhoon Rai left in its wake, the silver lining to this dark cloud was the support that PhilAWARE provided to OCD’s operation center and staff,” said PDC Deputy Executive Director Chris Chiesa. “It was heartening to hear how it improved their sharing of information within OCD and between NDRRMC agencies.”

PDC’s models and data sharing relationships provided critical, life-saving information to aid rapid response and helped decision makers anticipate what was going to happen, where, how bad the impact would be, and what type of humanitarian support might be needed. 

This information was available within PhilAWARE, enabling the Philippine government to make swift decisions to evacuate residents, suspend work and school, ground ferry and cargo vessels, and cancel domestic flights.

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Cyclone Idai

The cause, primary and secondary effects and immediate and long term responses to Cyclone Idai

Cyclones are tropical storms that occur in the Indian Ocean. Cyclone Idai is the strongest tropical cyclone on record to affect Africa and the Southern Hemisphere.

Cyclone Idai satellite image

What caused Cyclone Idai?

In early March 2019, a storm cell brought heavy rains to Malawi before heading out to sea off the coast of Mozambique. The storm intensified into Cyclone Idai and returned to land on the evening of 14th March 2019. Often, storms that develop there don’t strengthen as much as those that form north and east of Madagascar, but Cyclone Idai was fed by warm water temperatures. The storm, with winds of up to 115 mph/185 kph and more than 150mm of rain in 24 hours, wreaked havoc in the Mozambique port city of Beira, home to 500,000 people, along with surrounding districts. It then swept inland and on to Zimbabwe. The storm caused widespread devastation and the loss of life and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands more people.

The location of Cyclone Idai

March 3 2019

Tropical disturbance forms.

The tropical disturbance that would become Cyclone Idai develops and begins to strengthen near the coast of Africa.

March 5th 2019

Heavy rains cause severe flooding across Mozambique and Malawi.

March 11 2019

Tropical depression.

Now a tropical depression, the storm becomes more intense between coastal  Africa and Madagascar. 

March 14-15 2019

Tropical cyclone idai makes landfall.

Tropical Cyclone Idai makes landfall near Beira, Mozambique, as a Category 2 storm with sustained winds exceeding 105 mph.

March 20 2019

Heavy rain continues.

Heavy rains continue along with search and rescue operations and damage assessments.

March 21 to 27

Aid response.

Governments and humanitarian aid agencies begin responding with life-saving relief supplies to the affected areas.

Search called off

The Mozambique government calls off the search for survivors of Cyclone Idai.

Cholera Cases

Cholera cases in Mozambique top 1,400, according to health officials.

What were the effects?

Flooding in Southern Africa has affected nearly 3 million people in Mozambique, Malawi, and Zimbabwe since the rain began in early March and Cyclone Idai struck March 14 and 15. The death toll has exceeded 843 people, and many more remain missing. Over 1 million people were displaced by the storm.

It was not just heavy rainfall that led to flooding, storm surges between 3.5m to 4m hit the coastal city of Beira. The ocean floor along the coast by Mozambique is conducive to give storm surges.

The image below shows the area around Beira before and after the cyclone.

According to the Red Cross, up to 90% of Beira, Mozambique’s fourth largest city, has been damaged or destroyed. The devastated city became an island amid the flooded area with communications, power and clean water severely disrupted or non-existent. Houses, roads and crops disappeared beneath the water that was six metres (19ft) deep in places. Rescuers struggling to reach survivors who may have spent up to a week sheltering on roofs and in trees. A woman gave birth in a mango tree while escaping floods in central Mozambique.

The coastal lowlands, located between the higher plateau and the mountainous areas to the west near the Zimbabwean border were the hardest hit by the floods.

At least 180 people in Zimbabwe known to have been killed by landslides triggered by Idai. Nasa satellite images depict the extensive landslide activity associated with Cyclone Idai . The landslides were partly caused by deforestation.

People were still being rescued a week and a half after the storm.

As flood waters receded, survivors struggled to obtain food, clean water, and shelter.

According to the World Bank the cyclone affected about 3 million people, damaging infrastructure and livelihoods. Unicef reported that over half of the 3 million people in urgent need of humanitarian help were children.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) says that Cyclone Idai wiped out a whole year’s worth of crops across swathes of Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. At least 1 million acres of crops were destroyed.

The cyclone is expected to cost Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe more than $2bn, the World Bank has said.

Cholera infected at least 1,052 people in Mozambique’s cyclone-hit region.

What was the immediate response?

As part of the forward planning for severe weather, safe zones had been created in rural areas of Mozambique for evacuation above the flood plain . However, the flooding was far worse than had been expected.

The meteorological office of Mozambique, Inam, issued weather alerts as the storm developed. The highest possible alert was raised by the government three days before the cyclone struck, telling people to evacuate threatened areas.

Some people were evacuated by boat before the cyclone struck, however many people in rural areas didn’t respond to the warnings or were not aware of them.

According to the mayor of the Mozambican city of Beira, the government failed to warn people in the areas worst hit by Cyclone Idai despite a “red alert” being issued two days before it struck.

The South African air force and the Indian army, which happened to have a ship in the area, drove the initial rescue effort. Opposition groups in Mozambique blamed the limited government preparation and response on corruption.

Last year, the government of Mozambique received support from international donors for a disaster fund of $18.3m (£13.9m) for 2018 and 2019. This is the main source of funding for any disaster response and is intended specifically for search and rescue within the first 72 hours.

More than 130,000 newly homeless people were taken into reception centres.

Two weeks after the disaster 900,000 doses of oral cholera vaccines arrived in the cyclone-battered Beira city, from the global stockpile for an emergency, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

As flood waters receded the International Committee of the Red Cross supported flood-affected communities to recover bodies, identify them and bury them in clearly marked graves.

The Mozambique government announced the search and rescue operation to find survivors from Cyclone Idai was over two weeks after the storm.

With the help of OpenStreetMap – an open-source mapping resource – thousands of volunteers worldwide digitised satellite imagery and created maps of the affected area to support ground workers. Through the Missing Maps Project , an army of arm-chair mappers has already mapped more than 200,000 buildings and nearly 17,000 km of roads in the affected areas.

A large number of international charities launched appeals to fund aid to support those affected by Cyclone Idai including The Red Cross, Unicef, DEC, CAFOD and MSF (Doctors Without Borders).

What was the long term response?

Two weeks after the storm the government of Mozambique announced a new phase in the recovery operation was beginning to help those affected and rebuild the education, health, energy, transport, industry and trade sectors, which were all devastated by the cyclone.

The UN has appealed for donations of $282m to fund emergency assistance for the next three months.

Useful Resources

NASA Products for Cyclone Idai 2019

Virtual OSOCC Tropical Cyclone Idai in Mozambique

Virtual OSOCC Tropical Cyclone Idai in Zimbabwe

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Tropical Storm Allison Recovery Project

HARRIS COUNTY, TX - Tropical Storm Allison descended on southeast Texas in June of 2001 and dumped 37 inches of rain in 12 hours, claiming 23 lives. Portions of major highways were submerged, 30 counties affected, businesses were destroyed and 1,611 damaged, 155 schools sustained water damage and over 35,000 homes were affected by flooding. The Texas Medical Center campus and buildings sustained damages that are expected to exceed $2 billion. Tropical Storm Allison is now the flood of record for the Houston metropolitan area and Harris County.

Harris County is subject to frequent severe flooding from tropical storms and hurricanes. Historically, the county experienced 16 major floods from 1836 to 1936, some which caused deaths and flooded downtown Houston. In 1935, the Texas State Legislature established the Harris County Flood Control District (HCFCD) to have sole responsibility for the management of storm water and its results. Funding for the district is through a dedicated property tax.

The HCFCD has employed many structural mitigation measures such as channelization, detention facilities, bridge elevations and construction of levees and/or flood walls. Since 1994, the district has been aggressively pursuing acquisition and buyout as their major non-structural mitigation measure. Over the last 12 years the district has purchased 440 properties (vacant lots and houses) at a cost of $40 million. Their pro-active buyout program continues both during a federal declaration and between flooding periods. Their goal is to move people out of harms way and allow the land to return to a natural state. Their process has been fine tuned to a fast track approach and because it is on-going, the response time and potential for increased costs have been greatly reduced. Additionally, the district seeks partners to share in project costs. Active partners, for example, are the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP), City of Houston Parks and Recreation Department, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

A study done by the USACE in 1998 looked at options of providing flood control to a section of land in the floodplain at the San Jacinto River and Cypress Creek in the Northwest section of Harris County. The study concluded that structural methods could not be economically justified and determined that non-structural methods, specifically buyout, would meet all the objectives. The benefit to cost ratio for the removal of 40 structures is 1:4. This is a direct benefit. Additionally, there are the indirect benefits of a buyout, i.e., cost of search and rescue, frequent repairs, temporary residences, family disruption, mental and physical health problems.

Since its creation, the district has completed structural and non-structural flood control projects at a cost of approximately $4 billion. The boundaries of the district encompass 1,756 square miles, 22 watersheds and more than three million inhabitants, including the City of Houston which is the fourth largest city in the United States.

This same area was flooded by Allison; however, damages were significantly less. HCFCD was awarded HMGP money to buy out over 600 substantially damaged homes following the storm.

Standard Homeowner's insurance policies do not cover flood damage. The National Flood Insurance Program makes Federally backed flood insurance available to homeowners, renters, and business owners in participating communities.

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• Published: 24 March 2016

Tropical storms

The socio-economics of cyclones

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Nature Climate Change volume  6 ,  pages 343–345 ( 2016 ) Cite this article

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Understanding the potential social and economic damage and loss wrought by tropical cyclones requires not only understanding how they will change in frequency and intensity in a future climate, but also how these hazards will interact with the changing exposures and vulnerabilities associated with social change.

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Man, 53, medevaced from fishing boat to Honolulu

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U.S. COAST GUARD

The U.S. Coast Guard medevaced a 53-year-old man from a commercial fishing boat back to Honolulu after receiving a call for help Monday.

Joint Rescue Coordination Center Honolulu watchstanders received a 1:45 p.m. call Monday from Pacific Fishing & Supply crew reporting that a member aboard the 68-foot fishing vessel Autumn was exhibiting stroke-like symptoms.

At the time, Autumn was about 750 miles offshore, and the crew estimated they were six days away from Oahu.

After the duty flight surgeon recommended a medevac, watchstanders directed the crew of Coast Guard Cutter Harriet Lane to meet the Autumn approximately 480 miles offshore of Oahu.

The Harriet Lane reached the Autumn at 4:05 p.m. Wednesday, brought the patient aboard, and transported him to Honolulu Harbor, arriving at 6:30 a.m. today.

The man was taken to Queen’s Medical Center by Emergency Medical Services and reported to be in stable condition.

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