|
On September 18, 2003, Hurricane Isabel impacted the northern Outer Banks of North Carolina. At the Army's Field Research Facility in Duck, 125 km north of where the eyewall cut across Hatteras Island, the Category 2 storm generated record conditions, for twenty-seven years of monitoring — 8.1 m significant wave height measured at a waverider buoy in 20 m of water and 1.5 m storm surge.
Coastal Change from Lidar
In a cooperative program between USGS and NASA, airborne lidar (NASA's EAARL - Experimental Advanced Airborne Research Lidar) was used to survey the beaches and dunes along a 350-km-long reach from Cape Henry (at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay) to Cape Lookout, North Carolina (see Index Map for survey area). With the accurate long-range forecast by NOAA's National Hurricane Center, we were able to acquire the pre-storm survey only two days before Isabel's landfall. A post-storm survey was flown three days following impact and allows detection of coastal change.
Oblique Aerial Photography
In addition to the lidar surveys, and from a different twin-engine plane, the Isabel impact zone was photographed and videotaped by the USGS, while another USGS crew inspected the observed changes from the ground.
 |
|
| Survey Locations |
 |
| Index map showing the path of Hurricane Isabel (blue arrow) and the survey locations (red line), and the breach (green arrow). [larger version] |
|
U. S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
