Northeastern Research Team Aids North Carolina Hurricane Relief
A student and faculty research team, led by CEE Assistant Professor Kelsey Pieper, is assisting hurricane relief efforts in North Carolina by creating databases to determine what buildings and wells have been affected by the storm. Working alongside Pieper are Professor Edward Beighley, Cassidy King, E’26, chemical engineering and environmental engineering, and Kyla Drewry, PhD’26, civil and environmental engineering
This article originally appeared on Northeastern Global News. It was published by Erin Kayata. Main photo: Northeastern students Cassidy King and Kyla Drewry went down to North Carolina to help with response to Hurricane Helene. Courtesy Photos
Northeastern researchers give back. Partnership with North Carolina strengthens amid hurricane recovery
Hurricane Helene ravaged North Carolina, wiping out entire communities and leaving residents unprepared to deal with the aftermath of the unprecedented flooding.
For years before this, Northeastern assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering Kelsey Pieper, worked with health officials in North Carolina to conduct research on lead poisoning and well water quality. After years of the state aiding in her work, she and her team used this moment to give back.
Pieper and some of the students working under her, along with fellow professor Ed Beighley, created databases to help North Carolina officials determine what buildings and wells might have been affected by the storm. They also went to North Carolina to aid local departments in creating tools to educate residents on how to disinfect their wells.
“They don’t get flooding like this in the mountains, so the health departments didn’t know what to do, per say,” Pieper said. “We were helping out because we lean on the state a lot to…advance our research. This is the first major time that they were like ‘We have this problem’ and we were like ‘OK, let us help you.’ A lot of us are staying up late and volunteering hours because they’ve done so much for us, supporting our research.”
Northeastern students built model well heads for North Carolina health departments to use to show residents how to disinfect their wells after Hurricane Helene. Courtesy Photos
Pieper said she reached out to her contacts in North Carolina after Helene hit to see what they needed. The state was still figuring out the extent of the damage, so in the meantime, Beighley, a distinguished professor in civil and environmental engineering, and one of his PhD students created a flood model to figure out the extent of the damage.
Beighley, whose research is also funded by NASA, uses remote sensing data products to do hydrologic studies, which includes flood mapping. Most of the data he uses are from satellites.
In this case, he used datasets tracking things like rainfall and used the National Weather Service’s national water model to look at the flow of the state’s rivers and the potential discharge from them. Beighley said he then uses that model and a mapping technique to make a custom flood map.
“We provided North Carolina Department of Health maps of where we thought the water would have gone,” he added. “We’re using rainfall to look for places where we think water quality might be impacted from surface flooding.”
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