Simulating Hurricane Carol in Providence

Along the coast of Rhode Island, there are a lot of wastewater treatment facilities. If flooding occurs, the resulting inundantions will disrupt the process of treating wastewater and cause stoppage of water services for many families. Because of this observation, I became interested in researching previous flooding events in the Rhode Island region, and I discovered Hurricane Carol. On August 25, 1954, Hurricane Carol brought strong winds and rough seas to Rhode Island, significantly damaging the area. The resulting storm surge flooded downtown Providence with as much as 12 feet (3.7 meters) of water. In this project, I use real data tracked from the hurricane, as well as Unity, to simulate Hurricane Carol’s effect on oil depots and wastewater facilities in Providence, Rhode Island.

An oil depot and a couple wastewater treatment facilities in the Providence area.

The inundation maps and data I use for this project are derived from a coupled model simulating wind and storm surge (ADvanced CIRCulation model and a custom Hurricane Boundary Wind model developed at the University of Rhode Island).¹² Levels of storm surge from the simulated storm are validated against historic tide gauge data and other references.

Section perspective of oil depot at Collier Point.

One kind of structure that is threatened by a hurricane is an oil depot. If a hurricane hits an oil depot, there will be a fire and electricity hazard because of strong winds. Furthermore, oil spills can happen; leaked oil can poison the surrounding environment, damaging local environment and wildlife. Water can also erode the metal tanks storing the oil and affect the depot’s longevity. I present a section perspective of the oil depot at Collier Point, along with a visualization of the flooding that occurred during Hurricane Carol.

Collier Point, 3 PM

Collier Point, 3:15 PM

Collier Point, 3:30 PM

Collier Point, 3:45 PM

In order to gain insight into how a hurricane affects wastewater treatment facilities, it is useful to know how the treatment process works. It begins with a lifting station bringing water from an underground pipeline above ground. The water then moves on to the next stage of the process, which is the primary settling basin. In this phase, the sediments and the solids from the wastewater settle onto the bottom of the basin. After this filtering process is completed, the water moves on to the primary and secondary clarifiers which apply further filtration techniques. The final filtered water is disinfected at the disinfector and then released back into residential areas. It is important to note that there are three open water containers in this facility: the primary settling basin, the primary clarifier, and the disinfector. These components are particularly vulnerable to flooding. Note that wastewater treatment facilities differ and may not exactly follow the steps just described.

Below, I present visualizations of the flooding that occurred during Hurricane Carol for two wastewater treatment facilities: East Bay and Bucklin Point.

East Bay, 2:15 PM

East Bay, 2:30 PM

East Bay, 2:45 PM

East Bay, 3:00 PM

Bucklin Point, 1:30 PM

Bucklin Point, 1:45 PM

Bucklin Point, 2:00 PM

Bucklin Point, 2:15 PM

In order to get a better real-time sense of the hurricane, I present a video of a Unity simulation of Hurricane Carol for the wastewater treatment facility at Bucklin Point. Note the shaking trees as well as the flooding water.