Hurricane Maria One Year Later

At night, Earth is lit up in bright strings of roads dotted with pearl-like cities and towns as human-made artificial light takes center stage. During Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico's lights went out.In the days, weeks, and months that followed, research physical scientist Miguel Román at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and his colleagues combined NASA's Black Marble night lights data product from the NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite with USGS-NASA Landsat data and Google's OpenStreetMap to develop a neighborhood-scale map of energy use in communities across Puerto Rico as the electricity grid was slowly restored. They then analyzed the relationship between restoration rates in terms of days without electricity and the remoteness of communities from major cities. ||

Scientist Miguel Román and colleagues combined NASA's Black Marble night lights data product from the NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership with data from USGS-NASA Landsat satellites and other sources to produce a neighborhood-scale map of energy use in communities across Puerto Rico as electricity was restored after Hurricane Maria in 2017.Complete transcript available.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel. || At night, a satellite's view of Earth lights up in bright strings of roads dotted with pearl-like cities and towns as humans take center stage in artificial light. In Puerto Rico, during Hurricane Maria, the entire island's lights went out. In the days, weeks, and months that followed, research physical scientist Miguel Román at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and his colleagues combined NASA's Black Marble night lights data product from the NASA/NOAA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite with USGS-NASA Landsat data and Google's OpenStreetMap to develop a neighborhood-scale map of energy use in communities across Puerto Rico as the electricity grid was slowly restored. They then analyzed the relationship between restoration rates in terms of days without electricity and the remoteness of communities from major cities.En Español:Por la noche, las vistas de la Tierra captadas por satélites se iluminan, mostrando brillantes collares consistentes de carreteras salpicadas por ciudades y pueblos que se asemejan a relucientes perlas. Las actividad humana, reflejada en el uso de luces artificiales, toma un papel protagonista. En Puerto Rico, durante el Huracán María, todas las luces de la isla se apagaron.En los días, semanas y meses que siguieron, el investigador Miguel Román del Centro de Vuelo Espacial Goddard de la NASA en Greenbelt, Maryland, y sus colegas combinaron el producto de datos de luces nocturnas Black Marble de la NASA, proveniente del satélite Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership de la NASA y NOAA, con datos del satélite Landsat de USGS-NASA y con OpenStreetMap de Google. Usando todos estos datos, los investigadores crearon un mapa que mostraba el uso de energía a nivel de vecindad en comunidades de todo Puerto Rico a medida que la red eléctrica iba siendo lentamente reestablecida. A continuación, analizaron la relación existente entre los niveles de restablecimiento (en términos de días sin electricidad) y la lejanía de las comunidades respecto a los grandes centros urbanos. ||

Animation that does of a low fly over of El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico. The entire animation is split screen showing the 2017 data on top and 2018 on bottom. Notice the dense lush forest canopy in 2017 and how it covers and shades much of the forest floor. However, in 2018, after Maria devastated the forest in late 2017, the tree canopy has been greatly thinned exposing much more of the forest floor. || In September 2017, Hurricane Maria's lashing rain and winds also transformed Puerto Rico's lush tropical rainforest landscape. Research scientist Doug Morton of Goddard was part of the team of NASA researchers who had surveyed Puerto Rico's forests six months before the storm. The team used Goddard’s Lidar, Hyperspectral, and Thermal (G-LiHT) Airborne Imager, a system designed to study the structure and species composition of forests. Shooting 600,000 laser pulses per second, G-LiHT produces a 3D view of the forest structure in high resolution, showing individual trees in high detail from the ground to treetop. In April 2018 (post-Maria) the team went back and surveyed the same tracks as in 2017 (before Maria).The extensive damage to Puerto Rico's forests had far-reaching effects, Morton said. Fallen trees that no longer stabilize soil on slopes with their roots as well as downed branches can contribute to landslides and debris flows, increased erosion, and poor water quality in streams and rivers where sediments build up. ||

Sample Composite that split screens the lidar swath over the El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico. During the split screen, 2017 data is on the upper left and 2018 data on the bottom right. As the camera moves northwest, the viewer can see patches of ground becoming visible in the 2018 data. This is due to the vast numbers of trees that were stripped or fell during Hurricane Maria in September 2017. || In September 2017, Hurricane Maria's lashing rain and winds also transformed Puerto Rico's lush tropical rainforest landscape. Research scientist Doug Morton of Goddard was part of the team of NASA researchers who had surveyed Puerto Rico's forests six months before the storm. The team used Goddard’s Lidar, Hyperspectral, and Thermal (G-LiHT) Airborne Imager, a system designed to study the structure and species composition of forests. Shooting 600,000 laser pulses per second, G-LiHT produces a 3D view of the forest structure in high resolution, showing individual trees in high detail from the ground to treetop. In April 2018 (post-Maria) the team went back and surveyed the same tracks as in 2017 (before Maria).The extensive damage to Puerto Rico's forests had far-reaching effects, Morton said. Fallen trees that no longer stabilize soil on slopes with their roots as well as downed branches can contribute to landslides and debris flows, increased erosion, and poor water quality in streams and rivers where sediments build up. ||

Animation that does of a low fly over of El Yunque National Forest, Puerto Rico. The entire animation is split screen showing the 2017 data on top and 2018 on bottom. Notice the dense lush forest canopy in 2017 and how it covers and shades much of the forest floor. However, in 2018, after Maria devastated the forest in late 2017, the tree canopy has been greatly thinned exposing much more of the forest floor. || In September 2017, Hurricane Maria's lashing rain and winds also transformed Puerto Rico's lush tropical rainforest landscape. Research scientist Doug Morton of Goddard was part of the team of NASA researchers who had surveyed Puerto Rico's forests six months before the storm. The team used Goddard’s Lidar, Hyperspectral, and Thermal (G-LiHT) Airborne Imager, a system designed to study the structure and species composition of forests. Shooting 600,000 laser pulses per second, G-LiHT produces a 3D view of the forest structure in high resolution, showing individual trees in high detail from the ground to treetop. In April 2018 (post-Maria) the team went back and surveyed the same tracks as in 2017 (before Maria).The extensive damage to Puerto Rico's forests had far-reaching effects, Morton said. Fallen trees that no longer stabilize soil on slopes with their roots as well as downed branches can contribute to landslides and debris flows, increased erosion, and poor water quality in streams and rivers where sediments build up. ||

To get a detailed look at vegetation and land cover, NASA uses an airborne instrument called Goddard’s Lidar, Hyperspectral and Thermal Airborne Imager, or G-LiHT. From the belly of a small aircraft flying one thousand feet above the trees, G-LiHT collects multiple measurements of forests, including high-resolution photographs, surface temperatures and the heights and structure of the vegetation. Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available.Music: Letting the Past Go, by Ben Hales [PRS], Matt Hales [PRS] ||

Overview of field expedition to Puerto Rico in April 2018, to survey the recovery of forests since Hurricanes Irma and Maria hit the island seven months before.Complete transcript available.Music: Treehouse Imaginations by Zachary Scott Lemon [BMI]Down Terrace by Damien Deschamps [SACEM]Reloj by Kevin Carbo [BMI]Living Forest by Luca Proietti [SIAE]Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel. || On September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria barreled across Puerto Rico with winds of up to 155 miles per hour and battering rain that flooded towns, knocked out communications networks and destroyed the power grid. In the rugged central mountains and the lush northeast, Maria unleashed its fury as fierce winds completely defoliated the tropical forests and broke and uprooted trees, and heavy rainfall triggered thousands of landslides that mowed over swaths of steep mountainsides. NASA’s Earth-observing satellites monitor the world’s forests to detect seasonal changes in vegetation cover or abrupt forest losses from deforestation, but at a coarse resolution. To get a more detailed look, NASA flew an airborne instrument called Goddard’s Lidar, Hyperspectral and Thermal Airborne Imager, or G-LiHT. From the belly of a small aircraft flying one thousand feet above the trees, G-LiHT collected multiple measurements of forests across Puerto Rico, including high-resolution photographs, surface temperatures and the heights and structure of the vegetation. The U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and NASA provided funding for the airborne campaign. The team flew many of the same tracks with G-LiHT as it had in the spring of 2017, months before Hurricane Maria made landfall, as part of a study of how tropical forests regrow on abandoned agricultural land. The before-and-after comparison shows forests across the island still reeling from the hurricane’s impact. ||