AEG Puget Sound November 2025 Meeting
Hotel 116 Bellevue, WA
Association of Environmental and Engineering Geologists - Puget Sound Chapter Monthly Dinner Meeting and Presentation
November 13, 2025 Hotel 116, Bellevue, WA
Presenter: Darrell Sofield, Geologist and Geomorphologist at HNTB Topic: LiDAR and Geomorphology in Disaster Recovery: Lessons from Western North Carolina
Please join us for an evening of networking, dinner, and a presentation by Darrell Sofield.
On September 26, 2024, western North Carolina experienced over 10 inches of rainfall on saturated soils, resulting in 9400 damage sites, 1400 closed roads, and 1825 damaged bridges and culverts. NCDOT maintains the public road and had an immense task to make the state and its residents whole. Damage estimates are ~$4.9 billion for NCDOT-owned structures alone. NCDOT needed help 1) in the management of billions of dollars in design and construction contracts, 2) understanding what happened, 3) updating design standards, 4) reviewing designs.
HNTB currently assists the NCDOT Hydraulics Office in Program Development, training Progressive Design Build (PDB) teams on 2D Hydraulic Modeling and Geomorphology to assess channel instability. To help NCDOT staff and PDB team, HNTBs Washington office developed design and modeling training workshops and performed rapid geomorphic studies at six areas with high concentrations of damaged sites (78 miles of roadway, 36 bridges along 50 miles of rivers). HNTB used drone-based LiDAR data collected by NCDOT to create LiDAR-based change detection models and relative elevation models to help understand how river reaches changed.
Darrell will share observations made from NCDOT, Appalachian Landslide Consultants, and HNTBs teams. You will learn about the scale of the storm and its damage, and how NCDOT is addressing repairs. Darrell will share how debris slides, debris dams, gravel mining, and undersized bridges impacted infrastructure. He will reflect on the FEMA and regional regulatory response and how this rehabilitated transportation infrastructure may impact rivers in western North Carolina.
6:00 PM Social Hour and Check In 6:45 PM Dinner 7:30 PM Presentation
Multi course buffet dinner with appetizer, salad, main course, and dessert. Vegan and gluten free options available. |
Location
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Hotel 116
625 116th Avenue NE
Bellevue, WA 98004
United States
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Dates
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| Start: | Thursday 13 Nov 2025 18:00 | | End: | Thursday 13 Nov 2025 20:30 |
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| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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