Interagency Coordination in Hurricane Wind and Storm Surge Hazard Reduction

1
Interagency Coordination in Hurricane Wind and
Storm Surge Hazard Reduction

• John Gaynor
• NOAA, Office of Weather and Air Quality
• Interdepartmental Hurricane Conference
• March 7, 2007

2
Outline(Agency Drivers for Wind and Storm Surge
Structural Hazard Research and Application)

• Windstorm Impact Reduction Act
• US-Japan bilateral Panel on Wind and Seismic
  Effects
• NSB Hurricane Report
• NIST-NOAA Disaster Resilient Communities
  Partnership
• Should we coordinate efforts?

3
Available at www.sdr.gov
4
(No Transcript)
5
Objective of the Program
6
Windstorm Impact Reduction Interagency Working
Group
NIST NSF NOAA (Designated Chair) FEMA (DHS)
FHWA HUD Specified in legislation
Convened January, 2005 Meets and reports A/L
quarterly to SDR Chair of the working group will
rotate between NIST, NSF, NOAA and FEMA with each
Agency serving a two-year term as chair. Annual
progress report
7

• INTERAGENCY WORKING GROUP PROCESS
• Inventory and assess existing wind hazard
  research, mitigation, and preparedness
• Define overall needs for wind hazard research,
  mitigation, and preparedness
• Identify gaps in wind hazard research,
  mitigation, and preparedness
• Make recommendations based on prioritized needs
• Agencies address priorities in planning and
  budget processes

8
Areas of Focus of the WindHRP Plan

• Understanding, predicting, and forecasting
• Enhancing knowledge, information and data on
  severe winds
• Improving prediction of hazardous wind events
• Understanding and quantifying wind loading
• Understanding the perception of wind hazard risk
• Mapping wind hazards
• Assessing impacts
• Investigating wind resistance of buildings,
  structures and critical infrastructure
• Developing improved tools for component- and
  structure-level simulation and numerical modeling
  of wind effects
• Developing improved tools for loss assessment of
  wind hazards
• Assessing social costs

9
Areas of Focus of the WindHRP Plan (Continued)

• Reducing impacts
• Assessing and communicating risk
• Developing prototype structural requirements
• Demonstration, education, training and outreach
  on improved codes and building guidelines
• Guidance on retrofitting
• Innovative technologies
• Land use measures and cost effective construction
  practices
• Preparedness and Enhancing Community Resilience
• Developing tools for community preparedness to
  wind hazards
• K-12 and college education needs
• General public awareness and outreach
• Evacuation planning
• Enhancing disaster-resistance of building codes
  and standards
• Building public and private partnerships
• Conducting emergency response exercises

10
Priority Research Issues

• Assessing individual and community capability
  to respond to wind events, including
  vulnerability analyses, risk perception, risk
  communication, risk management, communication of
  wind warnings and public response, evacuation
  capability, and public knowledge of appropriate
  protective actions for wind events, especially
  among vulnerable populations
• Evaluating the response of the built
  environment and critical infrastructure to wind
  events by investigating aerodynamic response,
  load path, ultimate capacity and the performance
  of the building envelope
• Assessing the impact of wind and windborne
  debris or wind and water/ice/snow
• Examining the interaction between wind and
  storm surge to determine the impact on building
  foundations and critical infrastructure
• Exploring the near-ground and
  channeling/shielding effects of winds on
  buildings through testing and instrumentation
• Developing new technologies and ground,
  airborne and satellite based observing systems to
  improve knowledge and understanding of windstorms
  and the wind variability within those storms
• Measuring the response of bridges and other
  highway structures to wind events, including
  stability, serviceability and functionality
  leading up to and through extreme events
• Developing and implementing technologies for
  rapid repair and restoration of critical
  infrastructure and critical services

11
Summary of Progress

• Despite the lack of appropriations for this
  program, agencies have been
• Enhancing knowledge, information and data on
  severe winds
• Investigating wind resistance of buildings and
  structures (in particular, bridge structures)
• Developing improved tools for loss assessment
  of wind hazards
• Increasing general public awareness and
  outreach in very narrow areas
• Evacuation planning assistance and guidance
• During the past year, there has been little or no
  progress in
• Understanding the perception of wind hazard
  risk
• Mapping wind hazards
• Assessing and communicating risk
• Developing prototype structural requirements
• Guidance on retrofitting
• Innovative technologies
• Land use measures and cost effective
  construction practices
• Building public and private partnerships
• Conducting emergency response exercises

12
Gaps and Remaining Issues

• Of the 8 highest priority research issues in the
  Implementation Plan, only one is being adequately
  addressed
• measuring the response of bridges and other
  highway structures to wind events, including
  stability, serviceability and functionality
  leading up to and through extreme events
• Delivery of research results to users is not
  effective.
• Interagency coordination is also lacking.

13
US-Japan Panel on Wind and Seismic
Effects(Established nearly 40 years ago.)

• Task Committee on Wind Engineering
• Bilateral meeting in July 2006 resulting in the
  following tasks
• Application of computational fluid dynamics (CDF)
  to complex structures and urban areas
• Comparing full-scale and model scale CFD
• Downscaling wind observations for use in CDF and
  understanding wind structure around complex
  structures and complex built environment
• Higher resolution data sets for windstorms
• Develop methodology for predicting structural
  damage from landfalling tropical cyclones
• Improved windstorm climatologies
• Convene workshop between meteorologists and wind
  structural engineers to communicate needs of
  engineers for wind data and reveal what is
  available now and in the future for wind
  observations

14
NSB Report Hurricane Warning The Critical
Need for a National Hurricane Research Initiative

• High Priority Predicting storm surge,
  rainfall, and inland flooding from hurricanes and
  tropical storms The impacts of flooding on
  community water supplies, ecosystems and the
  built infrastructure must be better understood
  promote and enforce more effective building
  practices.
• High Priority Interaction of hurricanes with
  engineered structuresengineered structures are
  vulnerable to damage from wind, precipitation and
  storm surge though the combined impacts are not
  well understood. Research therefore is needed
  to better understand fluid-structure interactions
  at fine spatial scales, with the coupling of
  atmospheric and land-surface/built infrastructure
  models essential for guiding the creation of
  improved building designs and construction codes
  in particularly vulnerable locations.
• High Priority Assessing and improving the
  resilience of the built environment. A
  requirement exists for a national engineering
  assessment of coastal infrastructure including
  levees, seawalls, drainage systems, bridges,
  water/sewage, power, and communications to
  ascertain their level of vulnerability to
  hurricanes. Studies are needed to identify and
  prioritize the most cost-effective improvements
  and develop a national loss reduction strategy
  that addresses inevitable degradation of built
  infrastructure. Careful attention also should be
  paid in infrastructure research to existing
  building codes and the extent to which recent
  damage has been a result of non-compliance.

15
NIST-NOAA Disaster Resilient Communities
Partnership

• Improve risk-based storm surge and shallow water
  wave maps for the design of structures (Storm
  surge work is on-going.)
• Develop Saffir-Simpson-type scale to predict
  structural damage potential (work emerging)
• Use CDF to develop wind load databases

16
Shouldnt these interagency/international efforts
be coordinated?

• To avoid duplication and to leverage resources
• Been attempting to link WindHRP, US-Japan, and
  NIST-NOAA efforts
• OSTP position is that the NSB plan be placed
  under WindHRP to avoid duplication.
• Is there a role for OFCM?

Any ideas? John.gaynor_at_noaa.gov