Development of Hurricane Storm Surge Model to Predict Coastal Highway Inundation for South Texas

Forecasting areas prone to flooding will allow us to send off our information gathered to departments such as TxDOT and the United States Department of Transportation. This would then enable these departments to create appropriate evacuation routes, depicting which roads are clear and which cannot be used in the event of a storm. Simulating hurricanes that have passed through this area such as Dolly in 2008, Beulah in 1967, and Bret in 1999 will display the roads and federal highways that frequently tend to get flooded. Identifying the “danger roads” and which federal highways will ultimately be useful for various engineering purposes, such as show the information produced. Since roads act as not only a means for transportation, but a very important drainage system as well. In the Willacy County and Cameron County, there is about 14 major highways (four of them which are US highways). A research study is being proposed over the course of the year that would project the overflow of storm surge onto USDOT and TXDOT major highways. The project entailment is to simulate about 3 historical hurricanes that have passed through the Laguna Madre and focusing on about five of the nearest highways along the coast. This would give the project outcome of receiving the adequate information to identify how much of each highway would get flooded from each Hurricane, as well as the duration of the surge submerging the areas of each specific highway