Dr. Derek Loftis of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science guest lectured and guided a Hampton Roads field trip for a UVA January-semester class focused on Civil Engineering in Coastal and Urban Environments taught by UVA Professors Michael Gorman and Jon Goodall. Dr. Loftis first prefaced the field trip with an hour-long guest lecture on hydrodynamic forecast modeling of Hurricanes Matthew and Hermine in Hampton Roads, attended by the class of 24 and Dr. Harry Wang from VIMS in the Dominion classroom of Andrew Hall. Then, a field trip around the Hampton Roads region commenced wherein Dr. Loftis guided the class to places where resilient infrastructure has been recently erected and to show the students places that flooded during Hurricane Matthew, which were depicted in the model animations from the lecture.
The field trip visited VIMS, Old Towne in Portsmouth, Ghent, the Hague, and Larchmont Neighborhoods in Norfolk, and Windsor Woods in Virginia Beach, and featured arranged/volunteered talks with city planners and officials.
More information on the Norfolk Retain the Rain app.