In September 2018, a North Carolina city’s long road to recovery from Hurricane Matthew two years earlier became even longer. Lumberton, a small but diverse city of 21,000 people, 96 km (60 miles) inland from the coast, unfortunately found itself in Hurricane Florence’s sights. The Lumber River, which bisects the city, swelled over its banks, damaging hundreds of buildings and causing many residents to abandon their homes.

NIST researchers, ourselves included, had first visited Lumberton in 2016, not long after Hurricane Matthew devastated the area. Because of this, a team of NIST researchers that studies community resilience and disasters, together with researchers from the Center for Risk-Based Community Resilience Planning, were closely watching the events of Hurricane Florence unfold.

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