Average annual wind loss libraries to support resilient housing and community decision-making

ABSTRACT

One of the key components to increase the resiliency of communities from wind hazards is enhancing individuals` and homeowner’s resilience continuously during and after a storm. A variety of wind hazard risk assessment methodologies are available; however, in spite of advances in damage and loss modeling, the systematic development of loss libraries has been largely overlooked in scholarly literature. This paper develops a straightforward, matrix-based mathematical formulation to rapidly generate a library of average annual loss (AAL) data for multiple building types across a variable wind hazard domain through convolution of hazard and loss functions and Monte Carlo simulation. The methodology is implemented for wind loss functions included in FEMA’s HAZUS-MH Hurricane Model to develop building, contents, loss of use, and total AAL loss libraries for 160 variations of wood-framed, single-family, one-story homes located in the continental US. The developed methodology provides a practical, easy-to-use approach for wind hazards that can be implemented immediately for a variety of applications to support individual building- and community-level wind hazard risk reduction decision-making.

KEYWORDS:

• Average annual loss
• wind hazards
• economic loss
• resilient housing
• decision making

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from FEMA Grant Number 1603-DR-LA, Project 0039 Statewide Hazard Mitigation Community Education and Outreach Project, CFDA # 97-039 through the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP) “Get a Game Plan” Program as a subrecipient through the LSU AgCenter. Furthermore, we gratefully acknowledge review and recommendations by Carol Massarra, which strengthened the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by FEMA Grant 1603-DR-LA; Project 0039 Statewide Hazard Mitigation Community Education and Outreach Project; CFDA 97-039 through the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness (GOHSEP); “Get a Game Plan” Program as a subrecipient through the Louisiana State University AgCenter.

Notes on contributors

Fatemeh Orooji

Fatemeh Orooji, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Western Kentucky University. Her research interests include hazard risk and loss assessment, hazard-resistant construction, and mitigation techniques.

Carol J. Friedland

Carol J. Friedland, Ph.D., P.E., C.F.M. is an Associate Professor and the Graduate Program Coordinator in the Bert S. Turner Department of Construction Management in the College of Engineering at Louisiana State University. Her research interests include risk assessment, lifecycle cost assessment, resilient buildings and communities, and modeling and decision-making for hurricane, wind, and flood hazards.