first response

After a hurricane, damage assessment is critical to emergency managers and first responders so that resources can be planned and allocated appropriately. One way to gauge the damage extent is to detect and quantify the number of damaged buildings, which is traditionally done through driving around the affected area. This process can be labor intensive and time-consuming. In this paper, utilizing the availability and readiness of satellite imagery, we propose to improve the efficiency and accuracy of damage detection via image classification algorithms.