Residential Storm Surge Damage Assessment for Galveston County

Summary

The purpose of this project is to create an accessible, flexible and updatable GIS database and web-based graphical user interface (GUI) that elected officials, emergency management officials, and the general public can use for predictive analysis and decision making.  This decision support tool will allow spatial analysis of separate data sets - including storm surge hazard areas, ground elevations, and residential structure location & value - from a seamless damage assessment model at the level of individual structures.  This model will cover Galveston County, but the model and methods can be ported to other locations given specific topographic and appraisal information.  With this tool, local elected and emergency management officials can manage disaster flood events in a proactive and predictive way and can choose between alternative response scenarios to minimize loss of life and property in the most cost effective manner.