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Eighteen years after Hurricane Charley made landfall in 2004, Hurricane Ian made landfall in nearly the same location, also as a Category 4 hurricane. Unlike Hurricane Charley (2004), water more so than wind was the impetus behind the disaster that unfolded. Despite being a below-design-level wind event, the large windfield drove a powerful storm surge as much as 13 ft high (relative to the NAVD8 vertical datum) in the barrier islands of Sanibel, Ft. Myers Beach, and Bonita Beach. Flooding was extensive along not only the Florida coast, but also well inland into low-lying areas as far north as Duval County and the storm’s second landfall site in South Carolina. As such, Hurricane Ian will likely be one of the costliest landfalling hurricanes of all time in the US, claiming over 100 lives. The impacts from Hurricane Ian were most severe in the barrier islands from the combination of storm surge and high winds, with many buildings completely washed away, and others left to deal with significant scour and eroded foundations. Several mobile/manufactured home parks on the barrier islands fared particularly poorly, offering little to no protection to anyone unfortunate enough to shelter in them. The damage was not restricted to buildings, as the causeways out to the barrier islands were washed away in multiple locations. In contrast, wind damage from Hurricane Ian appears less severe overall relative to other Category 4 storms, perhaps due to a combination of actual wind intensity being less than Category 4 at the surface at landfall, and the improvements in building construction that have occurred since Hurricane Charley struck 18 years earlier. It is notable that extensive losses were in part driven by decades-long construction boom of residential structures in Ft. Myers and Cape Coral since the 1950s and 1960s, expanding communities and neighborhoods encroaching upon vulnerable coastlines. Beyond serving as an important event to validate current and evolving standards for coastal construction, Hurricane Ian provides a clarion call to reconsider the ramifications of Florida's coastal development under changing climate. This project encompasses the products of StEER's response to this event: Preliminary Virtual Reconnaissance Report (PVRR), Early Access Reconnaissance Report (EARR) and Curated Dataset.
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NEER/GEER: Hurricanes Helene & Milton Dataset:Subtitle
In Fall of 2024, central Florida was impacted by Hurricane Helene (landfall in Perry, FL as a Cat 4 hurricane on Sept 27) and by Hurricane Milton (landfall in Siesta Key, FL as Cat 3 on Oct 9). The hurricanes led to damages of an estimated value > $200billion. The Nearshore Extreme Events Reconnaissance Association (NEER) and the Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance Association (GEER) represented by their members from more than 10 academic institutions, federal agencies, and industry and supported by technical staff from the NHERI RAPID facility and the UF Center for Coastal Solutions initiated on Sept 23 a data collection effort that included pre-, during-, and post-storm multi-disciplinary data collections efforts. The field data collection effort was concluded on Nov 22. Data includes hydraulic information on storm surge, waves, and currents, topographic and bathymetric data sets, terrestrial and seabed mapping, and geotechnical site characterization including in-situ testing, sediment sampling, and seismic testing. Data was collected in four focus areas in Florida (Cedar Key; Horseshoe Beach; Midnight Pass and Milton Pass, both near Venice) and observational data and limited data products were collected in other areas in Florida including Orchid, Ponte Vedra, Suwannee, Panama City, and others. Data is organized by site (four primary sites and others); data collection phase with respect to the two hurricanes; and instruments or data collection method. This work included support from both the UF Center for Coastal Solutions and the NHERI RAPID facility.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1939275
- PAR ID:
- 10599579
- Author(s) / Creator(s):
- ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more »
- Publisher / Repository:
- Designsafe-CI
- Date Published:
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- NEER UW RAPID Facility Hurricane Helene Florida Wave Gauges Water Level Raw Data GEER Terrestrial LiDAR Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) Cedar Key Horseshoe Beach Ponte Vedra Shired Island Palmer Point Park Midnight Pass Stump Pass Beach State Park Milton Pass
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Institution:
- RAPID - Natural Hazard and Disasters Reconnaissance Facility - University of Washington
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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