Ringing the Simulation Alarm: The Case of Hurricane Milton

Case example of Hurricane Milton to study the use of technology for disaster management

The recent monstrosity called Hurricane Milton has recently passed over Florida, USA. The devastation caused by the hurricane was so severe that the world waited with bated breath to witness its life-altering impact.

The Category 5 cyclone came ashore on the Big Bend of Florida on October 9, 2024, and over the course of the next two days, caused over 30 casualties and an estimated USD 50 billion in damages.

For those who did not experience the devastation firsthand, the impact is unimaginable, and we can do little more than pray for the wellbeing of Florida's residents.

While the pain of those who have suffered can never be undermined, in this article I wanted to talk about how a very specific piece of technology has possibly assisted residents in better understanding the gravity of the situation.

Employment of Mixed Reality

In 2018, the Weather Channel utilized Augmented Reality (AR) and Immersive Mixed Reality (MR) to visualize the impact of Hurricane Florence. The visualization went viral due to its realistic portrayal of the cyclone, garnering incredibly high levels of social media engagement. For those who might have failed to take the calamity seriously, the 9 ft tall imposing wall of water, though simulated, really put the impending devastation into perspective.

Deploying immersive mixed reality solutions, these videos make use of naturalistic graphics developed using a green screen and predictive data from research institutions such as the National Hurricane Center (though the use of a green screen is not always required). These videos are instrumental in generating a sense of urgency in viewers who might have otherwise taken the situation lightly and hoped against hope that it wouldn’t be as bad after all.

The reactions from viewers were everything the Weather Channel could have hoped for, with people proclaiming that the video instilled a desire to run for the hills, even though they were not in the line of sight of the destructive cyclone.

Since then, immersive mixed reality has been termed the future of weather reporting, a statement that has held true in numerous scenarios, including the destructive Hurricane Milton.

However, before we proceed to talk about mixed reality’s applications in disaster preparation, let’s understand what we mean by mixed reality.

The Technology Called Mixed Reality

In simple terms, mixed reality is a blend of both real and virtual worlds, where you can simultaneously interact with elements of both digital and physical environments.

While mixed reality has yet to attain widespread use and is currently being utilized primarily in very specialized fields such as architecture and medicine, and therefore might not be something you are extensively familiar with, I’ll still try to explain the concept with an example.

In medicine, for instance, students in medical schools use MR headsets to study human anatomy. Instead of just reading from textbooks or directly working on cadavers, they can interact with 3D visualizations (think holograms) of the human body. These holograms respond to the students’ actions and movements in the real world, and students can walk around or zoom in to see organs and other internal systems in more detail. It is a step ahead from using virtual reality for medical study.

Mixed reality differs from augmented reality in the sense that, in AR, you cannot manipulate the virtual elements that lay over the physical ones like you can in MR. If I were to give an example of AR, the easiest and most well-known would be the mobile game Pokémon Go. In the game, while the virtual Pokémon appear on your phone’s screen as if they are in your real-world environment, they do not interact with you or any other elements of the real world. That is an example of AR.

I hope that clears things up a bit.

However, since this article is not about mixed reality as a technology but rather one of its applications, I will refrain from going into more detail at the moment.

Instead, let us focus on how these immersive pieces of technology are being used for disaster preparation, specifically in the case of Hurricane Milton.

Examples of MR Used During Hurricane Milton

The idea for this article emerged from a LinkedIn post on my feed that talked about how immersive special effects are being used to warn people about looming disasters. After reading the post, I knew I just had to research more about this specific application of MR. Hence, here we are.

The post features a short video by the Weather Channel (which took a lot of digging for me to find, for some reason) where a weather reporter is demonstrating for viewers what a storm surge arising due to Hurricane Milton is going to look like.

The presenter uses MR to depict different levels of storm surge, walking through multiple scenarios to emphasize the growing risk of rising water levels. The first scene shows the presenter standing in front of 3 feet of floodwater, using AR to simulate the height and impact.

The visualization progresses as the AR water rises to 6 feet, submerging homes and other buildings up to their first floors. Lastly, a 9-foot-high storm surge is shown, with floodwater engulfing nearly everything in sight.

Once you watch the video, you will understand why MR and its usage, especially in the context of prompting evacuation in danger zones, is so impressive.

Note how the presenter is able to manipulate the water level, making this an example of mixed reality.

Analysis of Viewer Reactions and Engagement

The reactions and engagement behaviors from viewers attest to the success of utilizing MR in disaster management efforts. Instead of describing their reactions to you, however, I thought it would be better to just add pictures of what the users are saying.

Research on the Use of Extended Reality in Weather Representation

The usage of these special effects to alter the perceptions of viewers and encourage proactive decision-making regarding their own safety has been studied at length since then.

Through these studies, several benefits of immersive simulation have emerged. Firstly, since you cannot create a disaster scene in real life for educational purposes (due to legal and ethical concerns), extended reality (XR), which include all three - VR, AR, and MR, can help create disaster simulations that resemble reality but do so without endangering life.

Secondly, creating immersive simulations facilitates practicing disaster management, risk prevention, and safety training by allowing participants to rehearse their real-life responses in the event of an actual disaster.

Thirdly, immersive simulations help researchers plan out disaster management protocols and strategies that would be highly useful in the event of real catastrophes. They can adjust various factors, such as wind speeds (for hurricanes), wave amplitudes (for earthquakes), and average wave height (for tsunamis), to name a few, to understand the impact of a calamity and determine the most effective solutions.

Lastly, and perhaps the most important benefit, as we have established through this article, is the sense of urgency these simulations instill in viewers who might not otherwise realize the importance of immediate evacuation. This reduces the likelihood of them finding themselves in life-threatening situations.

The use of simulation technology has been so monumental in assisting with disaster management that I absolutely needed to research and write about it.

Here’s hoping that I was able to do justice to the topic while keeping it succinct and to the point 🍻

What are your thoughts on using simulation technology for disaster management? Have you had the opportunity to analyze any of these simulation videos yet? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Until next time,

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