A new tool is helping communities see the impact of climate change before disaster strikes. It's called Flood Vision, and as AccuWeather's Ali Reid explains, it's combining science and storytelling in a powerful new way.
00:00Seaside Heights, New Jersey is one of several communities along the East Coast where Flood Vision under Climate Central has collected detailed 3D data.
00:09The goal is to show people what their street, business, even their front porch could look like during a future flood.
00:16It may look like just another SUV, but this vehicle is part of a powerful new system called Flood Vision,
00:22helping people visualize climate change before it hits home.
00:26On top of the vehicle, multiple cameras, LiDAR sensors, and a precise GPS unit,
00:31all working together to map out every road, structure, and street corner in full 3D.
00:36The LiDAR is overlaid over a stereoscopic image, which is the way that your eyes would see the world in 3D,
00:42and then the GPS is overlaid over all that so that we know within just a few centimeters the elevation of every point that we pass.
00:49That kind of detail allows Flood Vision to model exactly how water will move through a neighborhood
00:54during sea level rise or storm surge, and what it could do to homes, schools, or emergency infrastructure.
01:01If you can see the future, you can shape the future.
01:03And so the visuals that we're collecting and the data that we're collecting can be valuable to underserved communities
01:10or places that are prone to flood.
01:12Every route is carefully chosen.
01:14The data is then processed and turned into digital maps that can simulate flooding under any number of future conditions.
01:21You always hear that during a hurricane, like people always say,
01:23oh, I didn't expect it to be this bad, or I didn't expect this storm to, you know, flood like it did.
01:29And what we're hoping is that we can show people ahead of time, this is what it could look like.
01:34This could save lives.
01:35And here in places like Seaside Heights, New Jersey, where water from past hurricanes has already reshaped the community,
01:42the ability to see tomorrow's risks today could be the difference between safety and tragedy.
