Estimation of damage loss due to hurricane wind and induced surge

Residential buildings in coastal areas are often at risk to more than one natural hazard, such as hurricanes, costal inundation or river flooding. In the United States, economic losses average about $6.0 billion annually from hurricanes. Greater than 75% of declared Federal disasters are a result of flooding. Although current design codes do consider load combinations, these are generally for non-environmental (natural hazard) loading and focus on dead and live loads and then their combination with each environmental load individually. In this paper correlations between hurricane and wind-induced surge are considered. The loss to residential construction due to combined wind and surge is estimated using assembly-based vulnerability. The loss due to hurricane wind including rainwater intrusion and hurricane-induced surge are both determined using assembly-based vulnerability. The method for estimating loss due to combined wind and surge in hurricanes may be used for design code assessment and proposals, retrofit of buildings in the coastal areas, disaster planning purposes, and potentially for insurance underwriting. © 2011 Taylor & Francis Group, London