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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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Hurricane Ian Reconnaissance
This project contains imagery collected from uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) flights over three barrier islands, Fort Myers Beach (FMB), San Carlos (SC), and Sanibel Island (SI), that are near Fort Myers, Florida, following Hurricane Ian. These barrier islands had substantial impacts from the hurricane, including the destruction of many residences and infrastructure, coastal degradation, and other environmental impacts. The imagery here was collected using a low-flying fixed-wing UAS with a high-resolution camera system that simultaneously collected oblique and nadir images from five lenses. The raw data set is very comprehensive and very dense. The extent of the collected data can be seen in the Hazmapper map. The data was processed into 3D models using structure from motion. The resulting 3D models have amazing damage detail and are measurement quality. They can be used to fully characterize damage to buildings, infrastructure, and the natural environment. The complete models are available here, with one model developed for each UAS flight (18 total flights). However, the complete models are very large data sets and require significant GPU power to open and manipulate. Thus, the data set is also divided into “tiled” areas on a 300-meter grid. Each tiled area is provided in both a full-resolution 3D model and a reduced-resolution preview that can be used for quick inspection. The tiles are named and distributed as shown here: https://arcg.is/19TLr5. The abbreviations for Fort Myers Beach (FMB), San Carlos (SC), and Sanibel Island (SI) are used throughout. The data set was collected and processed by the NHERI RAPID Facility and was part of the deployment by the Structural Engineering Extreme Events Reconnaissance Network (StEER).
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- Award ID(s):
- 2103550
- PAR ID:
- 10600810
- Publisher / Repository:
- Designsafe-CI
- Date Published:
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- StEER RAPID Facility reconnaissance Hurricane Ian orthomosaics point clouds Sanibel Island Fort Myers Beach San Carlos
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Location:
- University of Washington
- Institution:
- RAPID - Natural Hazard and Disasters Reconnaissance Facility
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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