The ADCIRC Surge Guidance System (ASGS), first formally discussed in 2008, is a portable real-time operational storm surge forecasting framework. It has continued to be refined with each Atlantic hurricane season since then. ASGS has delivered critical, time-sensitive information to emergency managers at the federal, state, and local levels in Louisiana, Texas, and North Carolina, as well as to agencies such as FEMA, NOAA, and DHS. Over the years, it has saved millions of dollars in time, property, and emergency assets—and likely many lives.

This talk traces its origins as a collaboration between LSU and UNC in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (2005), through its first real test during Hurricane Gustav (2008), and up to the modern day, where ASGS has consistently supported communities. It also covers technical aspects of the system: the ADCIRC finite element coastal ocean model at its core, how the user experience has been tailored for real-time operations, and the technical decisions that have enabled ASGS to become a robust, adaptable framework for operational use.

Currently, ASGS supports local and national emergency response in Texas and Louisiana. It runs on computing resources provided by the University of Texas' Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), the LSU High Performance Computing Center, and the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative (LONI). Most relevant for this audience, the talk highlights how the use of Perl, Bash shell scripting, standard Unix tools, and a whole host of open source software has made all of this possible.