Coastal Services Center

The hurricanes of 2004 and 2005 offer vivid evidence of the devastation that storm surge can inflict on coastal communities. Recognizing the importance of timely and accurate forecasts in reducing these impacts, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) created a Storm Surge Leadership Team in November 2004 to assess the current state of storm surge models, information resources, and decision support tools.

Three-Phased Needs Assessment

	Access A catalog of tools will offer a one-stop portal to NOAA products and services that provide storm surge information, such as forecasts and inundation maps.
	Coordination Increased collaboration within federal, state, and local organizations will allow data to be updated more frequently, create community models, and spur development of a tool that translates data between various vertical reference systems.
	Education State and local officials often lack the resources to attend training sessions. Distance education courses will be offered to emergency managers on real-time inundation information, forecasts, and products.
	Outreach NOAA will help the public learn about the risks of storm surge by providing enhanced training for local broadcasters on conveying community risk information.

Social science will play an important role in supporting these efforts to mitigate the impacts from coastal hazards by integrating economic, demographic, and other social data. To read more about the needs assessment and storm surge, go to the Storm Surge Needs Assessment page.