Post-Hurricane Sandy Coastal Oblique Aerial Photographs Collected from Cape Lookout, North Carolina, to Montauk, New York, November 4-6, 2012

Summary

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) conducts baseline and storm response photography missions to document and understand the changes in vulnerability of the Nation's coasts to extreme storms. On November 4-6, 2012, approximately one week after the landfall of Hurricane Sandy, the USGS conducted an oblique aerial photographic survey from Cape Lookout, N.C., to Montauk, N.Y., aboard a Piper Navajo Chieftain (aircraft) at an altitude of 500 feet (ft) and approximately 1,000 ft offshore. This mission was flown to collect post-Hurricane Sandy data for assessing incremental changes in the beach and nearshore area since the last survey in 2009. The data can be used in the assessment of future coastal change.

The photographs provided here are Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) images. The photograph locations are an estimate of the position of the aircraft and do not indicate the location of the feature in the images. These photos document the configuration of the barrier islands and other coastal features at the time of the survey. Exiftool was used to add the following to the header of each photo: time of collection, Global Positioning System (GPS) latitude, GPS longitude, keywords, credit, artist (photographer), caption, copyright, and contact information. Photographs can be opened directly with any JPEG-compatible image viewer by clicking on a thumbnail on the contact sheet.

Table 1 provides detailed information about the GPS location, image name, date, and time each of the 9,481 photographs were taken, along with links to each photograph. The photographs are organized in segments, also referred to as contact sheets, and represent approximately 5 minutes of flight time.

In addition to the photographs, a Google Earth Keyhole Markup Language (KML) file is provided and can be used to view the images by clicking on the marker and then clicking on either the thumbnail or the link above the thumbnail. The KML files were created using the photographic navigation files.

First posted September 19, 2014