The Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce presented Dewberry, a privately held professional services firm, with the Professional Service Innovator of the Year Award at this year's Greater Washington Innovation Awards ceremony.

The firm was selected based on its use of geospatial damage assessments to aid response and recovery efforts by quickly identifying the impact of severe flooding in southern Louisiana in August 2016. Geospatial damage assessments can rapidly determine damage by integrating geospatial data with structure locations, bare earth topography, and additional field data to indicate maximum flood heights and identify the extent and depth of flooding. Dewberry was able to assess the structure impacts in less than two days, in comparison to traditional field assessments, which can frequently take more than two months to complete.

This process has been performed by Dewberry for many major storm events since the Louisiana floods, including Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria. As a direct result of this information, individuals in the impacted areas across the U.S. are receiving federal assistance in a timelier manner.