Sigridur Bjarnadottir

Risk-based economic assessment of mitigation strategies for power distribution poles subjected to hurricanes

This paper presents a risk-based framework to assess the hurricane damage risks to distribution poles, and investigates the risks, costs and benefit of different mitigation strategies. It is estimated that power outages due to storms cause approximately

Regional loss estimation due to hurricane wind and hurricane-induced surge considering climate variability

270 million in repair/replacement costs annually in the USA. Hurricane Irene alone left approximately 6 million residents without power along the east coast of the USA in 2011, causing an estimated

Combined Loss due to Hurricanes and Storm Surge

5–

A probabilistic-based framework for impact and adaptation assessment of climate change on hurricane damage risks and costs

7 billion in damages. These high repair/replacement costs warrant an investigation of mitigation strategies that may aid in reducing replacement and damage costs. This paper describes the reliability analysis of typical timber distribution poles and probabilistic wind models to determine failure probabilities for specific locations. Furthermore, in order to more accurately portray the behaviour of distribution poles, the proposed framework includes the degradation and service-proven reliability of timber distribution poles. Four mitigation strategies are developed, and the cost effectiveness of each strategy is evaluated. In order to assess the cost effectiveness, a life cycle cost analysis is conducted for each mitigation strategy. This paper finds that appropriate mitigation strategies can reduce replacement costs of distribution poles associated with hurricane wind by 2060.

Loss Analysis for Combined Wind and Surge in Hurricanes

This paper presents a framework to assess the potential hurricane damage risks to residential construction. Studies show that hurricane wind, frequency and/or hurricane-induced surge may change as a result of climate change; therefore, hurricane risk assessments should be capable of accounting for the impacts climate change. The framework includes a hurricane wind field model, hurricane-induced surge height model and hurricane vulnerability models. Three case study locations (Miami-Dade County, FL; New Hanover County, NC and Galveston County, TX) are presented for two types of analyses: annual regional loss estimation and event-based regional loss estimation. Demographic information, such as median house value and changes in house numbers, and distribution of houses for different exposures, is used to estimate the time-dependent probability of damage with or without possible climate change-induced change in wind speed, frequency and/or surge height. Through both analyses, it was found that climate change may have a significant impact on regional hurricane damage losses.

Hurricane Risk Assessment of Power Distribution Poles Considering Impacts of a Changing Climate

Residential buildings in coastal areas are often at risk to hurricanes which can result in both wind and surge damage. In the United States, economic losses average about

Estimation of damage loss due to hurricane wind and induced surge

5.4 billion annually from hurricanes and greater than 75% of declared Federal disasters are a result of flooding. Although current design codes do consider load combinations, these are generally for non-environmental (natural hazard) loading and focus on dead and live loads and then their combination with each environmental load being considered individually. In this paper correlations between hurricane winds and wind-induced surge from a flood standpoint are considered in order to estimate the loss to residential construction due to combined wind and surge using assembly-based vulnerability. The method presented herein for estimating loss due to combined wind and surge in hurricanes may be used for design code assessment and calibration, retrofit planning for buildings in coastal areas, disaster planning purposes, and potentially for insurance underwriting.