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Drones in Humanitarian Action Case Study No.6: Rapid Damage Assessments of Tabarre and Surrounding Communities in Haiti following Hurricane Sandy

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Haití
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The timely availability of aerial imagery of the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy, combined with existing open source imagery and census data, allowed analysts to determine with precision where assistance was needed. The ability of drones to acquire the imagery depended on pilots gaining access to the affected areas, but did not require the clear skies necessary for the effective use of satellite imagery, and the drones accomplished the task seven days before the satellites.

Background

On October 24, 2012, while the country was still recovering from the 2010 earthquake and cholera outbreak, heavy rains associated with Hurricane Sandy struck Haiti. The country was hit hard by three days of continuous rains: the Grey river in Port-au-Prince, among others burst its banks, houses were destroyed and at least 54 people died during the storm.

Readily operational, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the OpenStreetMap Community of Haiti (COSMHA) reacted promptly to the disaster. Both had a local response capacity in place: IOM to support the ongoing relief work following the earthquake, COSMHA because it is a locally based community of Haitian volunteers. One of the first actions was to assess the extent of damage. As soon as the area was accessible (on Sunday, 28 October, four days after the beginning of the emergency), the teams deployed an IOM drone for a damage assessment over two communes along the Grey River2. Applying a before-and-after comparison methodology, they precisely evaluated the damages in the flood zone3 .