Citation

Vickery PJ, Lin J, Skerlj PF, Twisdale LA, Huang K. Nat. Hazards Rev. 2006; 7(2): 82-93.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, American Society of Civil Engineers)

DOI

10.1061/(ASCE)1527-6988(2006)7:2(82)

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the hurricane hazard model, terrain model, wind pressure, and windborne debris models used in the HAZUS-MH hurricane model. These models represent the first 3 of 5 major component models used in HAZUS for prediction of damage and loss to structures subjected to hurricanes. The 5 model components are the hurricane hazard model, terrain model, wind load model, physical damage model, and loss model. These models have been validated, wherever possible, through use of historical data for landfalling hurricanes, wind tunnel test results, field observations of hurricane induced damage, and insurance loss data. The HAZUS hurricane model represents an advance in the state-of-the-art over other hurricane loss prediction models in that it estimates wind induced loads, structural response, damage, and loss, rather than simply using historical loss data to model loss as a function of wind speed.