When Hurricane Helene struck the Carolinas on September 25, 2024, Dr. Patricia Carbajales-Dale and many of her colleagues at Clemson University\u2014located about two hours from hard-hit Asheville, North Carolina\u2014were stranded in their homes without electricity and internet. Yet, as so many communities came together to support one another after the hurricane, they found several ways to assist with relief efforts in and around Clemson, South Carolina\u2014and even as far away as Asheville\u2014using GIS.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cWe all helped each other. We put everything else on hold, and we didn\u2019t do anything but emergency response,\u201d said Carbajales-Dale, the executive director of Clemson University\u2019s Center for Geospatial Technologies. \u201cI feel like with GIS, we have the tools and the power to help when things like this happen, so I should drop everything and help. Honestly, nothing feels more important or more meaningful to me.\u201d<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":760072,"image_position":"right","orientation":"vertical","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"
Carbajales-Dale\u2019s interest in GIS was ignited during a different kind of emergency when she was in college in Madrid, Spain. She was studying forestry and engineering, and there were massive forest fires around her hometown of Ourense, in Galicia.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cI saw that GIS could bring all these models together showing the slope and the wind direction and the vegetation and where the helicopters were,\u201d she recalled. \u201cMy dad was an architectural drawer, so he used to do things by hand. And then CAD and AutoCAD came into his field, and it kind of took over. So when I was studying engineering and I saw GIS, I thought, \u2018This is going to take over, so I better study it,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n
Her university didn\u2019t offer GIS classes, so she looked all over the world to find a master\u2019s degree program in GIS. As she recalls, there were only three at the time, so she enrolled in the first cohort of GIS master\u2019s students at the University of Redlands in California\u2014a few miles away from Esri\u2019s headquarters. She figured she\u2019d stay for a year, get her degree, improve her English, and then take the technology back to Spain and apply it to forest fires.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cBut you know how life is,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n
After graduating, Carbajales-Dale got a job at a water resources consulting company in Santa Barbara, California. She then worked at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in the planning department before being hired by Stanford University, where she established and ran the Stanford Geospatial Center.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cIt was a dream job\u201d said Carbajales-Dale. \u201cMy job was to help people use GIS. I would get a surgeon who needed help with data for surgery patients, or I would get someone from urban studies. It was an incredible experience.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
While at Stanford, Carbajales-Dale developed and taught a course called GIS for Good that allowed students to work on projects for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (now known as UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency), the International Rescue Committee, and two other nonprofits. During the course, representatives from the agencies flew in from Geneva, Switzerland, and elsewhere to support the students. Carbajales-Dale also got a startup satellite company (that is now a well-known imagery provider) to direct its only satellite at some of the class\u2019s projects so that the students could use imagery.<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":760082,"image_position":"left","orientation":"vertical","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"
\u201cIt was just everybody coming together to make this class successful,\u201d she said.<\/p>\r\n
The students mapped refugee camps to help one organization determine where to put solar equipment. They helped another organization map its operations in several countries to figure out where to increase outreach efforts about its services. They also did a suitability analysis to help one organization choose where to put its support offices near a conflict-ridden international border.<\/p>\r\n
Despite the time differences between the students and stakeholders and the complexity of the projects, \u201cthe students really responded well to the challenges,\u201d Carbajales-Dale said.<\/p>\r\n
She only got to teach the class once, however, because after just four years at Stanford, her husband\u2014whom she met when he was a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford\u2014received a faculty job offer at Clemson. So she moved with him, ready to continue innovating with GIS at a new institution.<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"
Clemson is a land-grant university in western South Carolina that is deeply committed to not only supporting education and research but also providing public service and outreach to the local community, especially farmers.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cClemson offers a geography curriculum, but not in the traditional way you would see it at some other universities,\u201d said Mark Lecher, an Esri account manager for the education sector. \u201cThe university uses GIS to help out local municipalities, the county, and others. They aid in 911 dispatching, help the county develop long-range framework plans, and things like that. And Patricia has grown GIS at the university so that anything Clemson does to help the surrounding communities, there\u2019s a good chance that GIS is involved.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
When Carbajales-Dale moved to Clemson, she joined the IT department as a facilitator for the university\u2019s supercomputer, the Palmetto Cluster. She also began teaching a GIS workshop in the basement.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cAfter 10 months or so, there was more demand, and then there was momentum to create a center in partnership with the library,\u201d Carbajales-Dale recalled. \u201cNow, in addition to me, we have the GIS manager, a GIS and drone specialist, a developer, a temporary GIS analyst, and an intern.\u201d<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":760092,"image_position":"right","orientation":"vertical","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"
She also renovated some space in the library, giving the Center for Geospatial Technologies a training room, a collaborative area, a sandbox, and even virtual reality equipment.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cPatricia is finding ways to get multiple departments, many people, and a ton of students really excited about GIS by spotlighting the cool things,\u201d Lecher said. \u201cAnd then she ties it back to the really impactful things that GIS can do.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
For example, when Hurricane Debby struck the southeastern United States in early August 2024, Carbajales-Dale and her team\u2014in collaboration with Clemson\u2019s Agribusiness Program\u2014turned to ArcGIS Survey123. They employed Survey123 to develop a form that farmers and Clemson extension agents (university representatives who bring applied research to local communities and farms through educational programming and consultations) used to record information including how many acres got flooded, what farms\u2019 estimated crop yield and loss was, and how much livestock was lost. They could include photos as well. This data was then reported to the county and, if needed, state and federal relief agencies to help facilitate disaster aid. The survey can be used for hurricanes, floods, drought, hailstorms, and any other natural hazards that affect agriculture.<\/p>\r\n
The form used for Debby was too long, though, so Carbajales-Dale and her team began developing version 2.0. And then Hurricane Helene hit.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cWe kicked it into high gear,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"
Hurricane Helene pounded Clemson, though not as hard as some other places. But since the area was not in the hurricane\u2019s direct path, people were not very well prepared, according to Carbajales-Dale.<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":760112,"image_position":"left","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"
\u201cIn my neighborhood, we got trapped for two days. I couldn\u2019t leave because we had trees that came down in the neighborhood,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t have extra food, and we lost electricity.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
Once her neighbors used a chainsaw to cut a path through the trees, Carbajales-Dale was able to get to Clemson to check on her team members and get to work.<\/p>\r\n
At Pickens County, where Clemson is located, the GIS team was short two people, so Carbajales-Dale sent her GIS manager, Gakumin Kato, to work there. The county was also keeping track of anyone who called in or passed through the emergency center for help\u2014to get oxygen or medicine, have a tree removed from their rooftop, or find shelter. Each evening, after Carbajales-Dale had worked all day and started working on wrapping up her PhD at night, Pickens County and two other counties sent her the data they\u2019d collected from residents in need that day. She geocoded it, published it to ArcGIS Online, and sent it back to the counties.<\/p>\r\n
Carbajales-Dale was in contact with the Esri Disaster Response Program (DRP) and Clemson\u2019s Esri account manager throughout all this. They alerted her to an AI-based plug-in for Survey123 that was in beta that the counties could have used to automatically capture and geocode contact information from photos of residents\u2019 driver\u2019s licenses. Although Carbajales-Dale and her team got the plug-in working, the counties were too overwhelmed to switch workflows partway through the emergency. Carbajales-Dale hopes they can use it for the next emergency.<\/p>\r\n
The Survey123 form that station agents had been using to help farmers after Hurricane Debby came in handy again\u2014and it made a splash at the state and federal levels as well. Version 2.0 was shorter than the initial version, and station agents helped farmers across the region record damage. Newspapers reported the data, counties posted it on their websites, and even the South Carolina Office of Resilience asked Carbajales-Dale for the information.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cAll this data then went to the governor and even to Washington, DC, to help farmers get aid for the losses they [sustained],\u201d said Carbajales-Dale, who credited Dr. Adam Kantrovich, Clemson\u2019s Agribusiness Program team director, with designing the survey form and summarizing the data for government officials.<\/p>\r\n
These officials also used the data to run models that estimated additional relief needs, since not all farms filled out the form.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cSurvey123 was a game changer for this because, before, this information came in on paper,\u201d Carbajales-Dale explained. \u201cSince Hurricane Helene, we\u2019ve done another review of the survey, and we\u2019ve trained about 80 station agents to use it across all sorts of disasters. It\u2019s very important for the state.\u201d<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":760102,"image_position":"right","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"
Another important project that the Center for Geospatial Technologies spearheaded after Helene was an analysis to help helicopter pilots figure out where to land to drop off aid. The ground was unstable, and some critical supplies had already been lost. Working in concert with a Clemson soils and avalanche expert, Carbajales-Dale\u2019s team and Greg Dobson of the University of North Carolina, Asheville\u2014who was working in the center while his hard-hit university was closed\u2014put together models to determine the best places to land.<\/p>\r\n
One missing piece of the project was satellite imagery, so Carbajales-Dale and Dobson asked everyone they knew to send any new imagery they could find of Asheville and the surrounding areas. Lecher, people affiliated with the Esri DRP, and even a friend from Carbajales-Dale\u2019s master\u2019s degree program who now works for the US Army Corps of Engineers delivered.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cIt was a group effort,\u201d Carbajales-Dale said. \u201cEsri and Mark were reaching out, saying, \u2018Patricia, there\u2019s imagery from here.\u2019 The Army Corps was telling me, \u2018There\u2019s this imagery.\u2019 Everyone was pitching in. It was so beautiful to see how everybody was working together.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
Throughout her career, not only has Carbajales-Dale seen the power of GIS to bring people and information together, but also she has been a key driver of those faculties\u2014as evidenced by her incredible, quick work in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.<\/p>\r\n
\u201cGIS is so powerful, especially during an emergency,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s how we can truly make a difference.\u201d<\/p>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Center","content":"