THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 22, 1994 TAG: 9408220046
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MARGARET TALEV, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
Two research associates at Duke University contend that for the same price a University of Virginia professor charges, they can give property owners more accurate land-risk assessments.
They say what separates their consulting work from University of Virginia Professor Robert Dolan's is that they visit the site, a service not included in Dolan's $500 package.
David Bush, who works for Duke's Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, said site visits are necessary because aerial maps and other charts often miss topographic details that are integral factors in a safety equation.
North Carolina's storm surge inundation maps are ``the worst in the country'' in terms of detail, Bush said.
Island Research Associates Inc. was started one month ago by Rob Young, a doctoral candidate at Duke University. For about $500, Young or Bush will assess the natural risks a homeowner or prospective landowner might face in developing a specific cite.
The evaluation takes into account elevation and forest covering, and includes the study of aerial maps, state erosion information, Army Corps of Engineers charts, barrier island migration between storms and hazard maps drawn up by Duke University for the federal government.
Young said the evaluations - both with Duke and with Island Research - ``are not designed to predict, but simply to delineate those areas which are high risk or low risk.''
``If a thorough mapping had been done in the Buxton area and development had taken into consideration those maps - if they had not built in certain high risk areas - certainly there would have been a lot less flood damage,'' Young said.
He said the private consultations can be helpful for prospective home or business owners who want to know which of a few land options is the safest, what type of structure to build and how to minimize potential damage from erosion or mid-sized storms by building at an angle from the shoreline or using vegetative stabilization.
Bush and Young were in Corolla on Wednesday with two Vanderbilt University graduate students who are mapping Florida's coast, and a Duke undergraduate, Susan Bates, who is mapping Currituck County by taking into account preliminary maps, erosion rates, inlet areas and development.
Young said existing maps of Corolla indicated that a portion of the area Bates was surveying was considered safe from flooding during a 100-year storm. After on-site inspection, he said, ``We feel that's not the case. There's no way this whole area wouldn't be flooded in a 100-year storm.'' by CNB