When Hurricane Floyd came in the fall of 1999,
we had maybe the worst disaster that I had seen
in sixteen years as governor.
We were used to thinking about a hurricane
being a wind event.
We had no idea we were gonna have a flood.
I guess the thing the stands out most to me
is the total devastation.
A whole swath of a state covered with water.
And the fact that nobody knew
we were gonna have this flood
nobody knew the magnitude of it.
We became very aware that flooding
can be an enormous problem.
It can kill people and it killed many
in North Carolina.
And that the information that we had about
what was going to happen was just poor.
We weren't able to predict it.
We didn't know that water was gonna be
coming in up the rivers.
We didn't know how much rain was falling.
We didn't know how all this was gonna
accumulate and come together
to create this terrible flooding in our state.
Flooding is the number one storm-related killer.
And with half the U.S. population
residing along the coastline,
Accurate weather and water information is crucial.
Unfortunately, the ability to predict total water level
– which would account for how coastal storms
affect both the rivers and the tidal plain -
has not always been available to forecasters
and coastal community leaders.
That is, until now.
is a collaboration of multiple agencies
and universities focused on one goal:
a better forecast.
We have the whole entire continuum
from our rainfall researchers
to social scientists to outreach extension experts
with the National Sea Grant programs.
And what we're able to do with that then
is we're able to actually track a raindrop
from the sky to the summit to the sea.
In order to provide communities
with a total water level,
many sources must be included.
Streams and rivers carry water
that runs off higher elevations.
Eventually, these flow into a
larger body of water
such as an ocean.
When severe weather strikes,
things get complicated.
As a hurricane approaches land,
heavy rainfall covers the area.
Excessive run-off causes rivers to rise.
Fierce winds can push ocean water upstream.
When rivers meet the ocean waters,
massive flooding can occur.
CI-FLOW will provide better information
for everyone to use...
forecasters,
emergency managers,
community planners,
and the general public.
The overall goal is to give people
water level information where they live routinely.
Not just when they have floods
but everyday they have a water level forecast.
This is to benefit these coastal communities
so they're more resilient and so that they can respond
and recover from the hazards of coastal storms.
We owe it to our people to do this job.
We have the technical ability
and the bright people who can do it.
And we should do it in America.