Gulf Coast Universities Team Up to Address Hurricane Resilience

12/14/2017


BATON ROUGE – A new multi-institution research center will focus on helping the Gulf Coast do better at preparing for and mitigating the damage and loss of lives from hurricanes and other severe storms.

At the Hurricane Resilience Research Institute, or HuRRI, seven participating universities will share their expertise, from flood mitigation and hurricane modeling to public policy. The institute includes universities located in states spanning the Gulf of Mexico: LSU, University of Houston, Rice University, University of Texas at Tyler, Texas Tech University, the University of Miami and the University of Florida.

“By formally partnering with institutions studying severe storms in Texas and Florida, we hope to more rapidly share lessons learned to our research activities immediately following the storms,” said John Pardue, Elizabeth Howell Stewart Endowed Professor in the LSU Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. “Each of the storms are different and as a result it’s impossible to anticipate all of the impacts prior to the start of arrival.”

Expertise from LSU’s Center for Coastal Resiliency, which studies hurricane storm surge, climate change, sea level rise and other related issues, will be utilized as part of the research institute.

Amr Elnashai, vice president for research and technology transfer at UH, which will lead the institute, said the concept came together after hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria plowed through Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico, illustrating the need to look at severe storms and their aftermath in a different way.

“Much attention has been paid to understanding how hurricanes form and move, as well as coastal vulnerabilities,” Elnashai said. “But there has not been a systems view that accounts for the interactions and inter-connectivity of impact and resilience of all societal support functions, to manage assessment, impact, response and recovery as a continuum, thus protecting vulnerable communities.”

HuRRI will be led by Hanadi Rifai, John and Rebecca Moores Professor of civil and environmental engineering at UH, whose work includes an ongoing study of the chemical and microbiological contamination in Houston waterways after Hurricane Harvey.

Each institution brings unique research capabilities – in engineering, science, policy, education and technology – and significant institutional support that will be supplemented with external grants and contracts and cooperative agreements to launch projects in hurricane resilience.   

Rifai said the institute’s work will focus on “anticipating and accommodating” the storms’ impact, rather than the current model of waiting for a storm to pass and then devoting funding to repair and recovery.

“It will take an enormous number of resources to influence a paradigm change and offer evergreen solutions for hurricane resilience for affected communities,” she said.

Researchers from the seven institutions will be eligible to apply for the initial round of internal funding, which will require collaboration with at least one faculty member from another member institution.

Rifai noted that each partner brings special expertise to the new institute. In addition to LSU’s Center for Coastal Resiliency, other key areas of expertise will include:

  • UH’s Center for Advanced Computing and Data Science, along with the Hobby Center for Public Policy and the Energy, Environment & Natural Resources Center;
  • Rice University’s Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters, or SSPEED, Center, which addresses predicting severe storms and their impact on the Gulf coast, along with the Kinder Institute for Urban Research;
  • Texas Tech’s National Wind Institute, a multidisciplinary institute focused on wind science, energy, engineering and hazard mitigation;
  • UT Tyler’s Texas Allergy, Indoor Environment and Energy, or TxAIRE, Institute, focused on building technologies to improve indoor air and environmental quality
  • Miami’s Industrial Assessment Center, which offers energy, waste and productivity assessments for small and medium-sized manufacturers; and
  • UF’s Florida Institute for Built Environment Resilience, which offers expertise in adaptive planning and design, innovative construction, sustainability and built environment resilience, as well as the university’s wind tunnel and destructive testing capabilities and a field reconnaissance program to study damaging winds.
     

 

 

 

Contact Ernie Ballard
LSU Media Relations              
225-578-5685
eballa1@lsu.edu  

or

Alison Satake
LSU Media Relations              
225-578-3870
asatake@lsu.edu

 

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