The LSU Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes (CSPHIH) has been recently funded by the McKnight Foundation to conduct post Hurricane Katrina research for the next two years. The purpose of this project, led by Dr. G. Paul Kemp, Associate Professor, School of the Coast & Environment and LSU Hurricane Center, is to empower key scientists and engineers to conduct necessary research that will support the restoration of affected communities in the Greater New Orleans Area. This research will include independent field investigations, computer modeling and analysis and communication of the results.

As part of a university-based research center, CSPHIH has the unique ability to present independent non-biased information to communities. This gives the communities the necessary flood protection information needed to make informed decisions about their property and the rebuilding of their community. Information will be presented through a number of different avenues including workshops, public meetings, via website as well as through newsletters and other publications. We believe that quality and clear information for the public is necessary to rebuilding the devastated cities along the southeastern Louisiana coast.

This research effort will bring together researchers from several different centers and departments within LSU including the Hurricane Center, School of the Coast & Environment, Civil and Environmental Engineering, the Hazardous Substance Research Center/S&SW, and Landscape Architecture. Funding from this research will equip LSU researchers with the tools needed to conduct investigations in three primary areas: field work and computer modeling, communications and outreach, and recovery planning

Who is CSPHIH? LSU Center for the Study of Public Health Impacts of Hurricanes (CSPHIH), a program of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, was established in 2002 with a five-year grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents. www.publichealth.hurricane.lsu.edu

What is locally called the "Hurricane HEF Center" has been led from its inception by Dr. Ivor Ll. van Heerden, a nationally renowned coastal geologist and coastal restoration expert. The CSPHIH is a multidisciplinary 'virtual' center consisting of over twenty principal investigators (PIs) and co-PIs, including research faculty from LSU in Baton Rouge, the LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, and the Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences Department, University of Notre Dame . CSPHIH is a broad-based public health/flood impact consortium that seeks to integrate hurricane-related research and expertise of natural scientists, social scientists, epidemiologists, toxicologists and the medical/veterinary/mental health communities with that of a diversity of relevant civil engineering specialties (hydraulic, geotechnical, structural).

The LSU Hurricane and Hurricane HEF Centers earned praise from emergency managers and the public for introducing a number of innovations to storm response, including the contraflow traffic system that allowed for a relatively smooth if incomplete evacuation of New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina. The twin centers also played a key role in forecasting and warning of storm surge impacts on New Orleans and Southwest Louisiana as first Katrina and then Rita approached (www.hurricane.lsu.edu/floodprediction).

The Greater New Orleans Area 10 Parish Study: Orleans Parish, Jefferson Parish, St. Bernard Parish, St. Tammany Parish, Plaquemines Parish, St. Charles Parish, St. John the Baptist Parish, St. James Parish, Tangipahoa Parish, & Washington Parish