KEY BISCAYNE, FLA. (WSVN) - A group of University of Miami researchers is testing hurricane-force winds and storm surge on manufactured homes in Key Biscayne.
The research was conducted to help prepare homeowners for the next big storm that may develop during hurricane season.
“What is critical here, we are trying to assess the strength of those immense winds that we are facing during a hurricane, but also how much force do we get from the storm surge and the wave action?” said Landolf Rhode-Barbarigos, Assistant Professor of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering at the University of Miami
Inside the university’s SUrge-STructure-Atmosphere INteraction, or SUSTAIN, lab on Key Biscayne, scientists and engineers can simulate strong waves, crashing winds, and storm surge seen during a powerful hurricane.
The goal is to see how structures respond when all three conditions occur simultaneously.
“What SUSTAIN allows us is to check the interaction, to see how much of the wind and how much of the wave action and storm surge action we should consider in our designs,” said Rhode-Barbarigos.
“Forecasts have gotten a lot better over the last 30 years, and we’re working to keep making it better so that the warnings are more accurate, people can have more lead time to prepare their homes or to get out of harms way, and also so that they don’t have to evacuate if they’re not [going to] be impacted,” said Andy Hazelton, senior hurricane researcher at University of Miami.
For people living in hurricane-prone communities, the goal is to learn what works and what fails, and to use that information to build safer communities in the future.
“It takes a combined effort, so we are talking about retrofitting, planning, and the cost of protection. And all this in order to make the communities more resilient towards hurricanes,” said Rhode-Barbarigos.
As South Florida heads into another hurricane season, researchers said their main objective is to learn how hurricanes affect the places we live so that communities can be better prepared.
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