Combined Flood and Wind Mitigation for Hurricane Damage Prevention: Case for Amphibious Construction

Abstract

Some initiatives that are intended to mitigate extreme flood events do not fully consider the impact of less catastrophic but more commonly occurring wind-induced damage, which is a significant issue particularly in regions that are prone to hurricanes. The policies of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) encourage homeowners to implement permanent static elevation (PSE) to increase their flood resilience. However, substantial elevation can increase a structure’s vulnerability to wind. In effect, by protecting against a rare but catastrophic flood occurrence, these houses are made considerably more vulnerable to less severe but more regularly occurring wind events and thus face an increased likelihood of wind damage. This study introduces amphibious construction as an innovative retrofit flood-mitigation and climate-change-adaptation strategy. It also evaluates the increased vulnerability to wind damage that accompanies PSE, to which amphibious retrofit construction is an alternative. The results of our investigation suggest that amphibious construction could provide a beneficial alternative solution to mitigating hurricane damage because it is a strategy that can reduce vulnerability to flood damage without increasing vulnerability to wind damage.