NC Flood Inundation Mapping and Alert Network for Transportation (FIMAN-T)

In 2020, NCDOT and NCEM partnered to develop FIMAN for Transportation (FIMAN-T), a web-based tool used to provide NCDOT officials and emergency management stakeholders with real-time and forecasted flood inundation depths along roads, bridges, and other NCDOT assets in support of risk-based decision-making during flooding events. The goal of FIMAN-T is to provide visualization and metrics for roadway inundation, bridge hydraulic performance and identify potentially impacted NCDOT assets. This will enhance NCDOT’s responsiveness during flooding events by generating data and reports for use in disaster response and planning. A pilot was completed for the Neuse River basin for use during the 2019 Hurricane season.

FIMAN-T leverages the real time, 3D inundation mapping coupled with LIDAR derived roadway elevation layers to compute flooding depths over roadways for both current and forecasted conditions. The application features an interactive dashboard allowing users to navigate between current conditions, modeled scenarios, and forecasted conditions where available. The dashboard also features different “info-widgets” that provide detailed information including Stream Elevation, an interactive stage hydrograph, and Forecasted Peak. In addition, the Road Affected widget gives you the option to view a summary table of all impacted roads within the inundation extent of the selected gage, or a sortable and filterable table showing all impacted roadway segments. The system also leverages the DOT bridge database to provide real time bridge hydraulic performance dashboards during flooding events. The system reports critical emergency response information such as bridge freeboard (the distance between the water surface and the bridge’s low chord elevation) and has the option to export this information to a PDF report.