Georges and María, two hurricanes that have caught me off island. For the first one I was in college. I remember being in a seminar at Yale and only being able to think "there's a hurricane passing over my island, and I have no way of getting in contact with my family". That was before the time of cellphones so we only relied on land-lines and on making collect calls to call home! It lasted for a few days, not being able to get in touch with my loved ones. The emotional strain was extreme. Especially for an 18 year-old teenager in her sophomore year. I was sure I would never have to live that again. Well, 20 years later I went through it for the second time. I had vacations planned and left the island on one of the last flights before Hurricane María hit PR. We could already feel the start of tempestuous winds that were soon to cover the entire island. This time around I had a smartphone that allowed me to keep in touch with my family during the storm as well as to send them updates on where the eye of the storm was since the Doppler had exploded and the data that was barely accessible to them was not accurate.

After Hurricane Maria in Palmas del Mar, Puerto Rico. Photo from Ernesto Diaz, DNER.

Then came the photographs of the aftermath. Puerto Rico, the island I was born on and grew up in, was unrecognizable. Many of my fellow Puerto Ricans lost it all. There was a concern of running out of food. Drinking water was not available; everyone had to rely on bottled water, which quickly became a commodity. Moving around was an issue since gasoline was a luxury, initially only given to emergency efforts, then you were only allowed to fill up to $25 per day. And of course, there was debris everywhere. If you dared venture driving around at night, in the darkness blanket that the island was covered by due to the loss of power, you would risk running into a tree on the road or electric cables or posts that had fallen. I was told that you could actually see that stars at night in San Juan, a rarity due to the usual light contamination that comes from a city.

I was encouraged to telework until things got better in PR, something for which I was extremely grateful for as well as all the amazing support I received from my NOAA colleagues. Gestures like these were what got me through the experience of being a climate change refugee and not being able to go home to my family, my pups and the comfort of my home. The emotional drainage was once again the worst part of the experience, wanting to help and feeling completely helpless.

After Hurricane Maria in Humacao, Puerto Rico. Photo from Ernesto Diaz, DNER.

 

I came back to PR two months after the storm. Things were certainly better then. I arrived to a home without electricity, with mold everywhere, potable water being rationed, having to climb 8 floors to get home, cooking on a camping gas stove, and sleeping with a battery operated fan in the unusually hot and humid weather we were having. But after a two week vacation that ended up being two months away from home, I was back. I was where I belong, near the beach seeing palm trees instead of the beautiful fall colored trees up in Pennsylvania. Except this place I call home was not the same. What was once normal was now a distant memory or even a privilege to some. Massive trees (our elders in the vegetative world) are on their sides with their roots up in the air. Palm trees are like cartoon characters that have been scared and their hair rose to its ends and froze there, with their palms all facing one direction. Driving is an entirely different thing without stop lights or lights to illuminate the roads at night. Our driving style has the fame of being wild, now it's on a whole different level! Shopping for food is another adventure. Many isles are empty. We've all had to open our palates since you have to make due with what's available. Oh and doing your laundry, especially sheets and towels. Back to the old days washing them by hand, hoping they'll dry despite all the humidity that rules over our lives. Living in San Juan has its perks, and I was able to find laundromats that were providing wash and fold services, so I was spared from that one. But that's certainly not the case for many others. Then there's our addiction and dependency to cell phones, to communicate with each other and to even have a social life. Making a call in which you can't understand half of what the person is saying due to poor signal is the norm. Face to face conversations and interactions have increased due to this (for which I'm very thankful). And finally, air quality. We're all with allergies and congested. In addition to the expected Sahara Dust, we're also having to deal with an extreme amount of mold everywhere as well as all the fumes from generators. Besides drinkable water, power generators and D batteries have been the most sought after items during these past few months! 

So what is the new normal? I'm still figuring that out. I can tell you that appreciation of the little and basic things is a big part of it, as well as the time we spend with our loved ones. So in a way, thank you H. María for reuniting us and for reminding us what really is important.

Story written by Antares Ramos Álvarez, NOAA's Office for Coastal Management.

([email protected])

The team: A group of Special Operations veterans and coral scientists. 

The mission: Restoring thousands of coral damaged by recent hurricanes.

It might seem like an impossible mission, but NOAA found the right team to handle the job.

NOAA scientists have partnered with several organizations to help quickly assess damage to coral reefs in Florida and Puerto Rico following this year's very active hurricane season. One of those partners is Force Blue, a nonprofit group that gives former military combat divers opportunities to use their specialized training to assist with coral reef conservation.

Since October, seven members of the Force Blue offsite link dive team, representing all branches of the U.S. military and the British Royal Marines, have been working with coral experts to identify and restore damaged coral reefs.

This underwater work can be difficult. But it's work these veterans have already mastered in the military: moving heavy objects - in this case, pieces of reef and equipment weighing thousands of pounds - and working in dark, murky conditions that are far from ideal. (Video: WATCH Force Blue team members work to restore damaged corals offsite link after Hurricane Irma swept through Florida.)

Force Blue program staff have also trained the vets to identify different types of fish and coral, observe marine life patterns and behavior, and take underwater photographs that can clearly document the state of individual corals and overall reef health.

"When confronted with the awesome, destructive power of a hurricane or the scale of the environmental challenges we face, it can be daunting," said Force Blue diver, medic and U.S. Army Veteran Nathan Quinn. "The training pushes you to ignore the obstacles and get to work. Then you see the team come together and the amazing people from NOAA giving all they have. Suddenly, everything seems possible. We can do this."

"We knew that just figuring out the scope of the damage to coral after the hurricanes was going to be a huge project and we looked to partners to help us," said Jennifer Koss, director of the NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program. "As a member of a military family, I'm proud to have Force Blue on board and welcome them to NOAA's coral reef conservation community."

In addition to conservation, Force Blue works to provide opportunities for trained specialists who are often struggling with post-traumatic stress and adapting to a civilian world that is very different than their former military role and environment.

"Working on this project with NOAA has shown us that our mission to restore lives and restore the planet is an achievable one and that, with proper support, we can be a force multiplier in the battle to preserve the world's marine resources," says Jim Ritterhoff, co-founder and executive director of Force Blue.

This rapid coral assessment and restoration effort is only the first step in repairing and restoring reefs damaged in the hurricanes. Coral reefs are an important part of the ocean ecosystem and support a vibrant tourism industry, provide jobs, and protect lives and valuable coastal infrastructure - these valuable natural resources generate billions of dollars a year for coastal economies.

This effort was supported in part by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and other partners.

Story produced by NOAA. For more information, contact Kate Brogan ([email protected]) or Keeley Belva ([email protected]). 

The Office for Coastal Management (OCM) staff were involved in preparedness and response to hurricanes Irma and Maria in a number of ways.  

Leading up to hurricane landfall, residents in the USVI and Puerto Rico could visualize the area of the coast that might be subject to storm surge from Irma and Maria by using OCM's Coastal Flood Exposure Mapper and to see if they might be affected.

During and after the storm, OCM staff communicated directly with Coastal Zone Management (CZM), Coral Conservation Program, National Estuarine Research Reserve partner (Partners) staff daily via phone, texts or email to determine the status of staff and facilities and any needs we could pass on.  In the case of Puerto Rico, OCM staff often served as nodes for getting information from one set of partners to others, before more robust cell phone connections were established.

Before, during, and for a time after the storms, OCM provided daily e-mail, and sometimes text updates to Partners in the region. These updates included information on the status of partner staff and facilities, National Weather Service daily forecasts, links to  daily NOAA imagery and next-day missions, information on Office of Coast Survey and Office of Response & Restoration (OR&R) activity in the region gleaned from NOAA operational calls, links to ERMA (Environmental Response Management Application) and other NOAA storm resources and websites, and links to relevant resources from other federal agencies or NGOs.

After the storms, OCM held biweekly hurricane coordination calls with our CZM, NERR (National Estuarine Research Reserves Program) and Coral partners and some additional NOAA offices, including Sea Grant and OR&R Marine Debris Program, to identify specific needs and challenges our partners were having.   

Finally, OCM worked with NOAA Grants office to provide NOAA grant recipients in the Caribbean significant amount of flexibility with regard to reporting deadlines, post award grant actions and adjustments to grant spend plans and cooperative agreements based on post storm circumstances and or newly defined priorities.

Starting in mid-October, staff from the NOAA Restoration Center (RC) along with partners from PRDNER and our support contractor (Sea Ventures Inc.) began an effort to survey high value reef sites in Puerto Rico for post-storm damage. Surveys to date have looked at 30 high value reef sites in PR of which 20 have been identified as having major to moderate impacts and in need of emergency restoration. Damage ranges from large coral heads being overturned or tossed into sand (often these are hundreds of years old) to extensive burial and breakage.   In particular, previously identified dense thickets of the ESA-listed Staghorn and Elkhorn coral have shown significant colony breakage due to the species' branching morphology and shallow distribution. Nearly a 3500 fragments of the ESA listed Acropora palmata "Elkhorn Coral" have already been rescued and efforts will continue till the end of the year or longer.

Elkhorn Coral, Acorpora palmata. Photo credit: NOAA Restoration Center.

Although storm generated breakage is a natural process for some species, the widespread nature of this event and the back to back hits make it less likely that natural recovery will take hold before major mortality sets in, therefore contributing to the ongoing decline of these populations. Previous work has shown that rapid triage and selective stabilization of storm generated fragments that are at-risk will significantly increase the total number that will recover successfully because some fragments land on sand or in an unstable position that prevents their natural reattachment (see photographs). Stabilizing fragments in this manner represents an extremely cost effective restoration technique relative to rescuing corals from grounding events or growing corals in nursery and subsequently outplanting them.

When: Tue, April 3, 12pm - 1pm

Where: Silver Spring, MD - SSMC4 - 8150

Presenter: William J. Hernandez, City College of New York (CUNY), NOAA CREST (Center for Earth System Sciences and Remote Sensing Technologies), New York, NY

Abstract:

Satellite remote sensing has been used to study the effects of hurricanes and major storms on the bio-optical properties of ocean waters. This assessment was performed on satellite images collected immediately after two Category 4 hurricanes hit Puerto Rico (Hurricane Irma, September 6, 2017; Hurricane Maria, September 20, 2017). Maria's precipitation of over 96 cm (38.9 inches) from September 20-21, 2017 caused 13 river gauges around Puerto Rico to record floods. To overcome the missing data caused by persistent hurricane cloud cover, a multi-sensor approach was used to include other satellite sensors, such as the NASA Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectro-radiometer, Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager, and the European Space Agency Sentinel-2 Multispectral Instrument and Sentinel-3 Ocean Land Colour Instrument.  This approach made it possible to piece together 'true color' visualizations of major plumes at high spatial resolution. Additionally, satellite ocean color products such as diffuse attenuation coefficient at 490nm (Kd[490], an index of turbidity) and chlorophyll-a (chl-a) were also evaluated. An assessment of coastal water quality conditions, based on these products, The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) imagery produced by the NOAA Ocean Color Team and delivered online by NOAA Coral Reef Watch were used to derive the products and evaluate the water quality. The study demonstrates that these remote sensing tools can provide rapid assessment of water quality conditions on critical coastal ecosystems following major storm events. The methodology and results from this assessment will be presented.

Webinar Access:

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