The following article is a featured story in the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy’s annual magazine, Engage. To read the full 2021-2022 issue of Engage, click here .
The Disaster Incident Research Team (DIRT), housed within the Emergency Management and Homeland Security Program (EMHS), was formed in 2012 to effectively conduct research in disaster areas and provide students with experiential learning opportunities, which is often a challenge in disaster management.
“DIRT is a unique program that allows FSU to directly support emergency management in Florida during a disaster by being part of the response and recovery process,” said EMHS Director David Merrick. “This experience is crucial to our students, as it allows them to see how things work in the field before they graduate. This ongoing process also keeps our classroom offerings fresh, continually updated with the current methods and trends in disaster management.”
In recent years, much of DIRT’s efforts have revolved around remote sensing and unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in disasters.
The team deployed to Bay County and Mexico Beach during Hurricane Michael in 2018, as well as to the Champlain South Tower condominium collapse in Surfside in 2021. These deployments resulted in groundbreaking process improvements in damage assessments and urban search and rescue.
“I was there for the first 14 days of the [Surfside] response,” said Austin Bush, a doctoral student studying geography. “For those two weeks, I was flying UAS seemingly every other hour over the collapsed site making 3D maps, and we were able to provide Incident Command with extremely valuable information. This was my first disaster response where I truly felt that I was an integral component to a part of the response.”
Bush has served as a UAS pilot with DIRT since the summer of 2019 and is the supervisor of the internal student-led Incident Management Team. His research interests in geography frequently overlap with DIRT projects. “The majority of my work with DIRT has involved piloting UAS, with an emphasis on the development of 3D mapping techniques that are suitable for disaster management,” Bush said. “This has allowed me to be involved in a wide range of disaster-related projects, such as mapping farms for emergency management in Puerto Rico and Jamaica, to 3D modeling collapsed structures in Surfside, Florida.”
After completing his Ph.D., Bush plans to continue to pursue opportunities related to UAS and public safety. “When I first started working as a member of DIRT, I was significantly less confident in my professional abilities related to this type of work (UAS and Disaster Response). However, as I have been able to experience more events and learn about the profession, I have developed confidence in this skill set and plan to pursue a career based around it,” Bush said. “Working as a member of DIRT has not only helped me develop as a young professional in emergency management, but more importantly it has helped me grow as a person. It has provided me with opportunities to not only learn about emergency management, but to also get out of my comfort zone, work on my leadership skills, practice public speaking, and learn about project management.”
Laura Hart has been working with DIRT since 2015 when she was an M.P.A. student. Since 2017, Hart has been a full-time staff member with DIRT and course instructor while working on her Ph.D. in Public Administration. Her research focuses on UAS policies and issues surrounding complex emergency management and emotional labor.
“Over the years, I have worked primarily as a UAS pilot within DIRT,” Hart said. “However, I have specific interests in community fieldwork and research and have had the opportunity to travel throughout the Caribbean and the United States while gathering valuable experience.
I have been either deployed or activated for countless hurricanes, tropical storms, missing persons investigations, FSU football games, and a volcano.”
When recounting her most memorable experience with DIRT, Hart commented on the Kilauea volcanic eruption in 2018. “We flew unmanned aircraft systems over the rifts and tracked the rate of volcanic flow. I had never seen an actively erupting volcano before; it was one of the most surreal experiences of my life, especially at 3 a.m.”
Hart hopes to become a teaching professor after completing her Ph.D. “I greatly enjoy teaching and discussing different perspectives in the classroom. My field experience has been pivotal in developing compelling and accurate course content, as combined with theory,” Hart shared. “I’m grateful for the opportunities DIRT has provided to me both as a student and as a staff member. I have had the opportunity to learn a great deal about both emergency management and remote sensing within the public sector.”
Achievements in remote sensing in the field have led to the creation of a new lab at FSU, the Disaster Intelligence Analysis Laboratory. This lab is designed to advance the work begun by DIRT focused on intelligence gathered during a disaster, including open source (social media) and geospatial (remote sensing) information. These methods and processes will support decision-making and situational awareness for emergency management and public safety in Tallahassee and around the state.
DIRT deploys students at all levels in their academic careers, from undergraduate to doctoral, providing students with a unique opportunity to conduct a wide variety of research during and after disasters.
To learn more about DIRT and the EMHS program, visit em.fsu.edu.