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we've all heard about the terrible

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floods in calgary well an experiment an

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experimental camera called i serve on

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the international space station is

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aiding in the effort here it's a unique

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opportunity to study disasters like this

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and joining me now is burgess howe he is

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the principal investigator for iserv and

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burgess first of all tell us what iserv

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is remind us what it does yeah

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lori i serve is an experimental camera

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it's a test bed camera

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primarily an engineering exercise that

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we're using for

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determining best practices procedures

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gaining expertise and experience and

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also informing decisions about future

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more capable instruments on iss

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tell us how we made the connection with

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the canadians and and how they learn

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device server how you let them know you

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have these photographs well i serve as

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part of a program called severe servir

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is an international uh cooperative

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program

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aids decision support in a variety of

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countries and our management uh

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primarily our project director dan irwin

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has established relationships with a lot

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of agencies around the world and we do

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have

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some relationships with canadian

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agencies dan called up some people that

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he had worked with previously and and

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and told him that we had of course when

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we heard about the disaster uh on the

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news we heard about i guess it was uh

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the friday prior we immediately sent up

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our commands to try to gather images as

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soon as possible we were able to get

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them the next day

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and it's really good because you pass

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over that area that's a great area to

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photograph yeah it really is it's

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advantageous because of the the

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characteristics of iso of the iss orbit

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um we go over the upper latitudes uh

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frequently and we actually got four

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passes over calgary in five days wow

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well let's take a look at some of those

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images the first one i think we're going

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to look at is a comparison image tell us

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about that what we'll be looking at here

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on the left side you should be seeing uh

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some imagery from a private company

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called digital globe it was acquired in

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2008 and to the right is the uh the

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scene that we got with iserv on the 22nd

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of june just the other day

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the primary difference you see between

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the two of them is the uh the brownness

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of the river that the the large river

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that comes in at the upper left and arcs

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through the city and goes back down

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through the center bottom there is the

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bow river now you can maybe see the the

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elbow which also comes in through the

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center to the left there and at the

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elbow near center you see the the

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calgary stampede grounds in the left

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image it's it's nice and dry and the

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right image it's uh it's obviously

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flooded if you look up to the right of

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there as well there's the the calgary

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zoo and uh there was a really

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significant problem there many of the

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animals uh uh were in serious distress

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some animals got away and some animals

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drowned uh following down the river

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there you see the the englewood golf

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club which is essentially destroyed at

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this point and uh to the south of there

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the old refinery park which is a a nice

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public area at the uh the south end of

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town and and as well as much of that

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industrial area just across the river to

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the north over there it was severely

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impacted by the flooding

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what's the next thing we're going to

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look at well um

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we're going to go over and take a look

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at uh i think we actually have some some

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some footage there of what some other

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spots in calgary

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but i'd like to talk briefly about the

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uh

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another incident another flooding

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incident that occurred a few days after

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calgary up in in northern india in uh

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the state of uttarakhand

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of

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a uh a wide-ranging flood event there

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yoshimoth

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uh rudra prayag several cities up there

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uh were hit this was primarily because

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of an early onset and a more severe than

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normal onset of the the monsoon rains

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we

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it was a really significant flood event

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uh of course that one of the the

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compounding factors is that the

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the uh area up there around these small

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cities there uh there are many uh

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shrines and temples there and uh they're

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the site of pilgrimages uh for instance

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in um

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in uh

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joshua and just the north of there uh

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there are as many as a half million

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pilgrims a year that come in and this is

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the pilgrimage season so uh a lot of

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them were impacted luckily and but or

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not there were no fatalities but there

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were a lot of damaged buildings

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i think you see in your in the the first

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frame there you see a a long shot this

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is a fairly wide view up in the upper

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right hand corner is butternut and

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through the center there you can see the

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the swelling of the

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of the

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aleknanda river and

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a series of landslides along the the

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banks there that impacted a lot of small

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villages

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next i think we can zoom down to

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a little a little closer shot also above

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renath and there you see the aleknanda

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river running

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left to right

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through the scene

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above the city there you see a lot of

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the landslide debris flows this is uh

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where the the rain has caused a

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significant shifting of the earth down

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the slopes you can't really tell in

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these images but these are very very

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steep slopes this is in the in the

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himalaya mountains and uh it's it's very

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steep also along the uh the the

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riverbank there on the south side of the

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river you can see that there's some some

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significant changes in the landscape and

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those are the buildings which have been

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uh impacted by flooding through the city

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there these are fascinating images so

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what happens after you send these images

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them how do they use these well

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in the case of canada for instance

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they were distributed to the emergency

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response agencies there the royal

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canadian mounted police also

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got them several of the

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other ministries agriculture ministry

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the the national parks people got

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involved there's a significant impact in

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banff for instance in the national parks

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the highway folks were interested the

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trans-canada highway was was impacted

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pretty seriously so

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they were distributed through a variety

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of agencies there the same thing takes

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place uh in in india now

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calgary was a little different we

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typically respond to international

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disaster charter floods

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events and calgary was not one of those

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so we we dealt directly with the

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canadian government in the case of

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disaster charter activations we go

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through

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the u.s geological survey is the

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clearinghouse for u.s data and they they

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push it off to the to the international

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managers the problem the disaster

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managers

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and i serve is a technology

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demonstration right but it's it's

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serving its purpose right well sure yeah

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we um we assumed from the beginning that

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uh although we are primarily an

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engineering exercise the the the course

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of the work that we have to do uh would

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produce a lot of good a lot of good data

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and this is exactly what we anticipated

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being able to do we've uh we've really

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increased our our pace and our rate of

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of response for these disasters lately

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it seems like they're coming one after

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the other so we're we're uh very very

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busy we're looking as soon as i leave

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here going back to our operations center

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and planning some shots in china so uh