Engineering Inc. - Spring 2020 - 20

DRILLING DOWN TO LOCAL IMPACT

As COVID-19's impact spread across the United States, two
geospatial specialists at Woolpert, an international architecture,
engineering, and geospatial firm headquartered in Dayton,
Ohio, brainstormed about what the firm could do.
"We are a geospatial firm, and the dynamics of a virus are
geospatial: how it spreads and how it changes," says Dan Michalec,
innovation portfolio manager at Woolpert. "We looked at how we
could use the firm's unique talents to help the community at large."
Michalec and Darren Johnson, database specialist at
Woolpert, created a U.S. County COVID-19 Visualization
dashboard that shows the county-by-county impact of the coronavirus across the U.S., including percentages of those affected
as compared to each county's population.
"We pitched the idea to our Chief Technology Officer Keith
Zecchini, and he gave us the go-ahead, seeing an opportunity to
use technology to understand the situation," Michalec says. "We
were very fortunate to have leadership that supported this, especially because the initial data sets were messy and we were not
sure where this would end up."
Woolpert used data from Esri and Johns Hopkins University
to build the dashboard.
"The data was available, but it was not structured for rapid use,"
Michalec says. "We searched for data sets we could rely on, stabilized them, made the data structured and time-aware, and then
visualized it for a public audience."
Adds Johnson, "There were already maps showing the impact of
COVID-19 at the national and state level, but there was not a good
breakdown at the county level. You can drill down with this map."
The application, which Woolpert created pro bono, is available on
its website as well as on the Esri hub that shares COVID-19 resources.
"We put it out there for public consumption for people to use as
they see fit," Michalec says. "We just did it to help."
PREPPING FOR THE USNS COMFORT

When New York City was the epicenter of the COVID-19
epidemic and there were fears the city's health care facilities
would be overwhelmed, President Trump sent one of the Navy's
hospital ships, the USNS Comfort, to the city with its 1,000
beds and medical staff.
To prepare the Manhattan Cruise Terminal for the hospital

"Engineers are
essential, and putting
them on this essential
work gives meaning to
us as an organization
and as a profession."
KARL JENSEN
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
AECOM NATIONAL GOVERNMENTS PRACTICE

ship, the New York City Economic Development Corporation
and Skanska turned to Langan, a national environmental engineering firm headquartered in New Jersey.
"It was pretty clear right away that where it needed to berth
did not have the draft to accommodate the ship," says Dave
Gockel, president and CEO at Langan. "So, what do you do?
You dredge, but dredging requires a lot of upfront permitting
and environmental work."
Langan deployed a team led by Jeffrey Stoicescu, senior associate, to work on two parallel tracks: one to obtain the emergency
permits, and the other to do the environmental, civil, and
dredge engineering support required to ensure all sediments
were properly disposed and the berth was prepared to handle the
hospital ship.
"I would say that there was probably six months' worth of work
that happened in about six days," Gockel says. "When you think
about the critical nature of the situation, the last thing in the world
you wanted to happen was for the ship to come up the Hudson
River and have to anchor while waiting for a berthing spot."
After docking, the USNS Comfort immediately started treating both COVID-19 and other patients, alleviating the pressure
on the city's health care system. And in April, the USNS Comfort started treating COVID-19 patients from Philadelphia and
the surrounding area.
"So often when we engineers are doing our work, it is a matter
of time before people see the tangible end
result," Gockel says. "In this instance, to be
done with our work and literally a day later
to see the USNS Comfort coming under
the Verrazzano Bridge and up the Hudson
River, it was an immediate sense of gratification for everyone involved."
TRAINING ESSENTIAL
SERVICES STAFF

This county-by-county dashboard developed by Woolpert includes confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths, as
well as a timeline for the spread of the virus across the U.S.

20

ENGINEERING INC.

SPRING 2020

Brown and Caldwell, an environmental
engineering and construction services firm
based in San Francisco, bills itself as "the
best virtual company in the industry,"
which made a huge difference in adapting to
the COVID-19 pandemic.
Engineering Inc. - Spring 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Engineering Inc. - Spring 2020
