Getting Out From Underwater
Earth observations guided efforts to aid communities swamped by historic flooding Flooding killed more than 125 people in the U.S. in 2016. When disasters threaten the lives of Americans, NASA Earth Science uses its perspective from space to assist response and recovery efforts. We maintain a close partnership with many federal agencies, including USGS, NOAA, and FEMA. In 2016, those partnerships strengthened—particularly with FEMA. “This year we focused on deeper collaborations with FEMA,” said Andrew Molthan, NASA Disaster Response Support Team member. “Both in terms of providing products that are well-aligned to support their flood response and by improving ways to share those products for effective and timely decisions.” During domestic flooding events, NASA provides data and images from its own satellites, like GPM, Aqua, Terra, and EO-1, and teams with other U.S. agencies and international partners to tap into their spacebased fleets as well. With this constellation of domestic and international satellites,...