Abstract
Hurricane winds present a significant hazard for coastal infrastructure. An estimate of the local risk of extreme wind speeds is made using a new method that combines historical hurricane records with a deterministic wind field model. The method is applied to Santa Rosa Island located in the northwestern panhandle region of Florida, USA. Firstly, a hurricane track is created for a landfall location on the island that represents the worst-case scenario for Eglin Air Force Base (EAFB). The track is based on averaging the paths of historical hurricanes in the vicinity of the landfall location. Secondly, an extreme-value statistical model is used to estimate 100-year wind speeds at locations along the average track based again on historical hurricanes in the vicinity of the track locations. Thirdly, the 100-year wind speeds together with information about hurricane size and forward speed are used as input to the HAZUS hurricane wind field model to produce a wind swath across EAFB. Results show a 100-year hurricane wind gust on Santa Rosa Island of 58 (±5) m s−1 (90% CI). A 100-year wind gust at the same location based on a 105-year simulation of hurricanes is lower at 55 m s−1, but within the 90% confidence limits. Based on structural damage functions and building stock data for the region, the 100-year hurricane wind swath results in $574 million total loss to residential and commercial buildings, not including military infrastructure, with 25% of all buildings receiving at least some damage. This methodology may be applied to other coastal areas and adapted to predict extreme winds and their impacts under climate variability and change.
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Acknowledgments
This work was done as part of the lead author's dissertation with support from Florida State University, USA. Additional support came from the US Department of Defense, through the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP), Project SI-1700, as well as from the US NSF (ATM-0738172). Views expressed within do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the funding agency. All statistical analyses were performed using the software environment R (http://www.r-project.org).
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Scheitlin, K.N., Elsner, J.B., Lewers, S.W. et al. Risk assessment of hurricane winds for Eglin air force base in northwestern Florida, USA. Theor Appl Climatol 105, 287–296 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-010-0386-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-010-0386-4