COLUMBIA, S.C.
The University of South Carolina will spend nearly $400,000 to fund 18 research projects involving Hurricane Katrina that range from evacuation response among minorities to the storm’s impact on salt marsh estuaries, the school said last week.
The projects — which have a six-month deadline — hope to capture data quickly and provide information that could be used during the next hurricane season and years that follow.
“We didn’t know Hurricane Rita was around the corner,” said Harry Pastides, vice president for research and health sciences. “It’s sad in a way because we truly hoped that the results of the research would be productive and help us to get better prepared the next time around.”
Forty-four proposals with a $25,000 funding limit were submitted earlier this month. Pastides said he was overwhelmed by the faculty’s response, but all the projects couldn’t be funded.
Some of the projects could be used to help South Carolina prepare for hurricanes. Other research could be submitted to federal agencies or published in science and health care journals.
The researchers also are collaborating with universities and colleges in the Gulf Coast area.
