Virtual Reality Technology Helps Us Prepare for Emergencies

Steve Adubato goes one-on-one with Rouzbeh Nazari, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Rowan University & Director of the Resiliency Lab at Rowan University, to discuss how his team is using the latest in virtual reality technology to prepare our region for emergencies and ensure safety from extreme weather events.

1/25/18 #2106

Excerpt:

"Steve Adubato, coming to you from Rowan University. We're pleased to welcome Doctor Rouz Nazari, who is Assistant Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Rowan University, and also Director of the Resiliency Lab at Rowan. Good to see you doctor. Thanks for having me. Talk about the Resiliency Lab. What is it? And why does it matter? So the Resiliency Lab is the work that we're doing on a project from the state of New Jersey, and this came about after Sandy. So resiliency... 2012, Sandy? 2012, Sandy. And resiliency, the ability to recover and withstand the storms and go back to normal operation, and that is our goal for the future. We want to make a system that is ready to tolerate the storm and also recover from... go back to the normal operation. So the goal of Resiliency Lab is to help the people of New Jersey at three stages, before, during, and after. What are the resources they need to have, or the preparations that they need to have? And during a storm, how to get out of the area? And after, how to come back and go back to their normal life? Doctor, let's take a look at this. Behind us, what we're looking at is Long Beach Island, right? That is correct. What is this? What does it show us? And what does it have to do with, if in fact there's a storm, what the folks in and around Long Beach Island, the decision makers, municipal officials, what they would have to do to prepare? So as I said, this is going to help people in preparation. One of the things is before a storm, you want to come to this, you know, system like this, to look at where you are, what are the available, basically resources next to you? How the storm is going to approach and hit your community? And your important information is, what is the level of flood? That means how deep the flood is going to be around your property. How would you know that? Alright, that's a great question. So we have access to models that can predict this information. We take the ocean energy, based on the available information from the soil type, elevation, type of structure, age of the structure, and a lot of other factors that goes into it. We can predict how much of what are you going to have? And what is it going to be? What available, you know, resources are going to be destroyed? Or are they going to survive and be available after the storm..."