Sending 哨兵 Into the Storm

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Posted on 2024年6月14日

Marketing and Communications

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This story was originally published in the spring edition of 南杂志, a joint publication of the University of 南 Alabama and the USA National 校友 Association. 阅读更多 在线. 

While everyone else is fleeing an approaching storm this hurricane season, Dr. Bret Webb and University of 南 Alabama colleagues will be heading toward it.

Webb, a professor of coastal engineering, doesn’t have a death 希望; he has a data 希望. He’s part of a research effort that, for the first time, is gathering detailed information about what happens when a hurricane hits the shore. He and his team will set up an array of sensors at the water’s edge, then head to safety before the storm 到达.

“For as much as we know about hurricanes, we don’t have many continuous measurements of surge and waves right at the shoreline during landfall,” Webb 说. “我们诚实 don’t know what happens there during these extreme events.”

Finding out will improve management of coastal threats. 南 is working with the University of Florida and other institutions, using 33-foot portable masts called 哨兵. Rugged instruments on the mast and the base measure wind speed and direction, wave height, rainfall, barometric pressure, humidity, water temperature and salinity, water quality and more. The 哨兵 livestream the readings, along with a video feed, via a cellular signal.

The total project award, about $550,000 over three years, will include money to build one Sentinel, finish construction of another, buy water quality sensors, and pay for faculty, student and staff time. The funding comes from the U.S. Coastal 研究 Program in conjunction with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Engineer 研究 and Development Center.

Crews will trailer the 哨兵 to the water’s edge at the projected landfall area of any named storm. Four 19-foot helical piles will screw the base of the mast into 沙子. Setup takes just 30 minutes.

The rig can survive and keep transmitting even during a direct hurricane hit, Webb 说. The mast is made of carbon fiber by a company that primarily builds masts for high-performance sailboats.

Webb coordinates the network for Mississippi and Alabama. Other research teams cover other stretches of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. The regional coordinators are responsible for lining up in advance where to deploy the 哨兵 — either public lands or private tracts where owners have granted permission.

Three 哨兵 are ready to roll, with more being built. “The idea is that they would be spaced at roughly five-mile increments along the coast within the expected landfall area of a hurricane,” Webb 说.

His research group at 南, which includes an engineering graduate student, plans to augment the 哨兵’ data by deploying its own home-built storm surge and wave 仪表附近. Commercial gauges cost $3,000 each; 南’s cost $200. 

The bargain price means the team can make lots of them. “So we’re going to either cover a really broad area with a bunch of gauges or focus all of our instruments in one smaller area but collect a lot of high-resolution data,” Webb 说.

南 has what he calls “a rather robust extreme events deployment group” of faculty and students, concentrated in the Department of Civil, Coastal and Environmental Engineering, who are on call to help set up the instruments as winds and waves kick up from approaching 风暴. 

In other words, 南 has sentinels to set up 哨兵, in pursuit of knowledge about one of the coast’s most destructive threats.

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