Two Minutes with ...

Vern Schaefer

 

On a mission: Vern Schaefer, professor in civil, construction, and environmental engineering, has been intrigued by the massive landslide that struck a remote area of Southern Leyte in the Philippines on February 17, 2006—a tragic event that killed as many as 3,000 people. The landslide occurred during typhoon season when a large part of a mountain slid down following several weeks of heavy rain and a mild earthquake. For the lasts two years, Schaefer, who holds the James M. Hoover Chair in Geotechnical Engineering, has received support from the National Science Foundation to join the reconnaissance team investigating the deadly natural disaster.

Stop and go: On Schaefer’s most recent trip to the Philippines in 2007, he and a colleague from the University of Florida traveled for 38 hours to reach their final destination, making stops at airports in Japan, and Manila and Tacloban, Philippines, and cruising for four hours by car on primitive concrete roads before arriving in St. Bernard in Southern Leyte. During their visit, Schaefer and other researchers conducted terrestrial-based laser scanning of the landslide to develop detailed topographic maps of the site. On his previous trip in June 2006, Schaefer met with government officials and began investigating the landslide’s cause.

Memorable journey: While Schaefer was at the landslide site, a group of 12-year-old Filipino girls stopped to visit with him because he was the first American they’d ever seen in person. Mostly, though, the girls wanted to know if what they saw on American TV shows was what life was really like in the United States.

Surprising service: Schaefer and his fellow researchers were surprised by the availability of cell phone reception in the Philippines. On his first trip, they took a satellite phone, but they didn’t end up needing it because they got good cell phone reception on the landslide site. He says this is because in the Philippines, cell phone service is relatively cheap, so the people jumped to the new technology as soon as it came along even though most still didn’t have land lines.

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