In an effort to further protect lives and property from the effects of natural disasters, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and their partners at the National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) have completed the development of HAZUS-MH v. 1.0. HAZUS-MH is an analysis tool for estimating damage and losses due to natural hazards. As part of this effort, FEMA and NIBS selected ARA's IntraRisk division to develop and implement the HAZUS-MH Hurricane Preview Model.

A presentation on the methodologies implemented in the HAZUS Hurricane Preview Model and a demonstration of the HAZUS-MH software was recently given by FEMA’s program manager, Mr. Edward Laatsch, and IntraRisk's Dr. Frank Lavelle on April 8 at the 2004 National Hurricane Conference in Orlando, Florida. The presentation also included an overview of loss estimates produced by the HAZUS Hurricane Model in the days leading up to the landfall of Hurricane Isabel on the North Carolina coast in September 2003.

This initial version of the HAZUS Hurricane Model estimates hurricane winds and potential damage to residential, commercial, and industrial buildings. It also estimates direct economic losses, short-term post-storm public shelter requirements, building debris, and tree debris. The full Hurricane Model, to be completed over the next 3 years, will add modeling capabilities such as storm surge, lifelines, and indirect economic losses. Long term plans also include the development of wind loss estimation models for extra-tropical cyclones, tornadoes, and thunderstorms.

The hazard component of the HAZUS Hurricane Preview Model makes use of an existing state-of-the-art windfield model, which has been calibrated and validated using full-scale hurricane data. The model incorporates sea surface temperature in the boundary layer analysis, and calculates wind speed as a function of central pressure, translation speed, and surface roughness. The Hurricane Preview Model improves upon existing loss estimation models by using a hazard-load-damage-loss framework. Additional features include:

•  A building classification system that depends on the key wind-related characteristics of the building,
•  The capability to compute damages based on building classes and the effects of rain, progressive failure,
•  The capability to compute damage to contents and building interior, and
•  The capability to estimate economic losses, shelter requirements, tree blowdown, and structure debris quantities

Click here for more information about HAZUS-MH. (Link to: http://www.fema.gov/hazus/ )

Passing FCHLPM Standards

Winning HHRF Proposal

HAZUS Development

1st Americas Conference on Wind Engineering

HHRF Mitigation Study Findings

Passing FCHLPM 2001 Standards

Passing FCHLPM 2002 Standards

Passing FCHLPM 2003 Standards

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