The third hurricane of the season, Hurricane Charles, is projected to make landfall just north of Palm Beach in the early a.m. hours. The network evening news anchors are conducting their standard interviews with the director of the National Hurricane Center. After finishing their interview, they switch to the International Hurricane Center.

"We are now going to the International Hurricane Center, also located at Florida International University, for the comprehensive forecast of physical and social consequences of this storm," says the NBC commentator.

At this point, an IHC staff member moves in front of a monitor alternatively displaying wind fields, surge and wave run-up maps, and damage estimates for the area most likely to be impacted. She notes that there could be substantial flooding around Lake Okeechobee due to surge action. She reinforces local emergency management directors' calls for evacuation by employing video computer animations, displaying the virtual surge and flooding of the coast and inland areas projected to be impacted by the storm.

If Stephen Leatherman, director of the Florida International University International Hurricane Center (IHC), has his way, that scenario (but with an unknown hurricane landfall) will become a reality within a few years. It's just one of the visions that Leatherman and his colleagues at the IHC - the only university-based hurricane research center in the entire country - are working toward achieving. Based on the rapid growth of its first few years and the importance of its mission, the Center offers considerable potential to help reduce the damage hurricanes inflict on people, the economy, and the environment.

The IHC was established by the Florida Board of Regents in 1996 as a Type I center, which makes it the official hurricane research center for all 10 state universities. In addition to being located in an area known for tropical storm activity, the IHC takes advantage of its proximity to and relationship with the National Hurricane Center (NHC, part of the U.S. Weather Service), which is located on FIU's University Park campus.

The IHC was born out of the devastation Hurricane Andrew wreaked on Miami in August 1992. After playing a key role in the area's recovery effort, the We Will Rebuild Foundation made a $1 million gift to FIU in 1995 to establish and endow the International Center for Hurricane Damage Research and Mitigation (the original name of the IHC). When the Center was created, the memory of Andrew - the most costly storm in U.S. history - was still relatively fresh. Given the history of massive damage inflicted by hurricanes, however, it's surprising that it took so long to establish a research center like the IHC.

Hurricanes are the most devastating natural hazards affecting the United States, particularly the highly populated East and Gulf coasts as well as the neighboring Caribbean islands. There has been more than $127 billion in losses during the last century and, in 1992 alone, just two hurricanes - Andrew and Iniki - caused more than $25 billion in direct damage. IHC's interdisciplinary, large-scale disaster research agenda - which includes disciplines such as architecture, business, construction management, economics, engineering, finance, geosciences, insurance, political science, sociology and urban planning - addresses critical aspects of hurricane vulnerability.

"In a word, we're trying to lower the damage and loss of life inflicted by hurricanes," said Stephen P. Leatherman, who was recruited as IHC director in 1997. Leatherman, an internationally recognized authority on coastal storm impacts, beach erosion and sea-level rise, is also well known as "Dr. Beach" - the moniker he uses when he issues his popular annual list of America's best beaches.

"The International Hurricane Center is not about meteorology," Leatherman said. "While that's of critical importance, our focus is mitigating the destruction of these storms, and that involves research ranging from wind engineers to sociologists."

To help advance hurricane research, the IHC and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (of which the National Hurricane Center is a part) are drafting a memorandum of understanding to create a joint Cooperative Institute for Hurricane Impact Studies. Since becoming director of the Center, Leatherman also has been lobbying to increase federal funding of hurricane research. The federal government spends approximately $350 million a year on earthquake research while hurricane research is only allocated $50 million. Although the IHC has been very successful in securing grants and contracts - $3.8 million as of the beginning of April - additional funding is critically needed to support research and programs.

A ten-year strategic plan (1999-2009) maps out the IHC's goal: to become the preeminent center of its type not only in the United States, but in the entire Western Hemisphere. The long-term objectives are to reduce hurricane damage and loss of life through more effective mitigation, warning, evacuation and preparedness.

"The International Hurricane Center is truly a work of love for me because it's a legacy stemming from our experience of Hurricane Andrew," said Robert Epling, chairman of the IHC Board of Trustees and president of Community Bank of Homestead. "The limits are unbounded as to what we can achieve to mitigate hurricane damage to people and the environment."

In recent months, Leatherman has spearheaded efforts to purchase an airborne laser terrain mapper, cutting-edge technology which represents a quantum advance in mapping coastal erosion and flood hazard zones. This data is critical to determine areas subject to hurricane flood surges and hence in storm surge mapping - a basis of FEMA's (Federal Emergency Management Act) flood insurance program (40 percent of all the flood insurance policies issued by FEMA are in Florida). The equipment will also be utilized for pre- and post-storm surveys for damage assessments. FIU and the University of Florida formed a consortium to purchase and maintain the equipment and a plane.

"In the past two years, the vision and focus of our center has sharpened," said Leatherman. "In addition to our hands-on research, we also hope to help change the perceptions of hurricanes by the public."

The catastrophic loss of life and devastation in Central America during Hurricane Mitch in the fall of 1998 alerted scientists to the need for a better way to measure the factors that determine how damaging a storm will be. The current yardstick to classify hurricanes and potential damage is the Saffir-Simpson scale, which measures a storm by the strength of the winds at its center, ranging from Category 1 at 74 miles per hour to Category 5 at 155 miles per hour.

Hurricane Mitch revealed the inherent limitations of the Saffir-Simpson scale. Mitch was classified as a Category 5 when it was over water, but by the time it reached the coastline of Honduras and Nicaragua its winds had diminished below hurricane force. Nevertheless, the storm was estimated to have killed between 10,000 - 12,000 people, the worst storm disaster in more than 200 years. Most of its destruction was caused by its very slow movement and heavy rains, which soaked the region for days and caused massive mudslides and flooding.

The factors that determine hurricane casualties and damage are many: meteorological parameters such as wind speed, rainfall, storm surge and tornadoes, as well as non-meteorological factors. These include population, land use, deforestation, topography and terrain, building codes, presence of flood plain settlements, awareness and preparedness, communication systems and options for safety.

"The Saffir-Simpson (scale) is doing what it's supposed to do (in terms of wind damage)," said Jerry Jarrell, director of the National Hurricane Center. "We need a new model to take into consideration a storm and the surrounding topography."

The IHC and NHC are embarking on a research program to develop a new hurricane disaster impact model, which will utilize the most advanced technologies. Five data dimensions - storm characteristics, topographic characteristics, deforestation-runoff rates, population concentrations, and land use/construction/socioeconomic profiles - would be integrated to formulate the new model.

"This could involve six or seven different departments (from FIU), some other universities, and outside companies," Jarrell said. "The IHC is a nice cohesion point for this sort of thing, they bring a lot of tools." "A slow-moving storm with high rainfall has greater potential for 'human impact' than a faster-moving storm," Leatherman noted. "In addition, low-lying coastal nations or islands face different problems than do mountainous nations. Hurricane Andrew founded this center, and now Hurricane Mitch is taking things to a different level."

View from the home front

Most people throughout the country experience hurricanes electronically as just another story on the national news, while South Florida residents must learn to live with the realities of hurricanes. The annual start of hurricane season on June 1 - not to mention the threat or actual occurrence of a storm sweeping across one's community - influences a multitude of critical decisions made by individuals and organizations. The potential for damage has made South Florida a living laboratory for sociologists and anthropologists studying the ways people prepare for and react to natural disasters.

"We're trying to understand household decision making," said Walter Peacock, associate director of research for the IHC and associate professor of Sociology and Anthropology. "I feel like we've utilized the experiences and lessons of Hurricane Andrew to drive subsequent research and put the results in the hands of the people who can use it."

To assist in the development and assessment of the mitigation programs begun by the Florida Department of Community Affairs, Peacock, Betty Morrow, associate professor of Sociology and Anthropology, and Hugh Gladwin, director of the FIU Institute for Public Opinion Research, conducted a study last year to assess the knowledge, experiences, perceptions and opinions of South Florida homeowners concerning hurricane risk and mitigation activities.

The South Florida Mitigation Baseline Survey was conducted with 1,200 households residing in owner-occupied, single-family residences in Palm Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. Questions focused on household characteristics; hurricane mitigation status, including insurance and shutters; hurricane risk perception and experience; knowledge of retrofitting and mitigation programs; and opinion of potential mitigation incentives. Key observations derived from the study included:

• Households - A large number of households (particularly in Miami-Dade) fall into categories considered more likely to be vulnerable to hurricane impact, such as elderly, female-headed and low income.
  
  
• Housing and Hurricane Protection - Slightly more than half of owner-occupied homes have some type of hurricane shutters for their windows, but less than 40 percent have coverings for all windows, doors, and skylights, and only one-fifth would likely meet current building code. More than one-third lack any hurricane shutters and about one-third of these said cost was the reason. About one-third said they did not need shutters, a belief that appeared to be based on misinformation or lack of knowledge about hurricanes and home safety.
  
  
• Perceptions of Hurricane Risk - While homeowners are well aware of the potential risk - with over half thinking it is somewhat likely they will experience a hurricane within the next year, increasing to three-quarters when the time frame is increased to five years - and many claim hurricane experience, very few have actually experienced a hurricane when it comes to damage.
  
  
• Mitigation Initiatives - Most homeowners expressed some interest in no-cost hurricane safety home inspections, particularly those without shutters who cited cost as a problem. However, the greatest interest was expressed in reduced insurance costs and property tax reduction as incentives to put up shutters.

Based on the study's findings, the researchers made a series of recommendations, including: reduction of insurance premiums and property taxes as the mitigation incentive programs with the greatest chances for success; the cost of shutters must be reduced before many homeowners will consider them; and campaigns are needed to educate homeowners about the importance of shutters and other hurricane-related home improvements.

In the wake of Hurricane Georges, which posed a serious threat to Miami-Dade and Monroe counties in September 1998, Morrow and Nicole Dash, an IHC research associate, began conducting a study comparing the response to Georges with that of Hurricane Andrew in 1992. The $96,000 study is being funded by the National Science Foundation.

Dash noted that one of the "missing pieces" of disaster research has been comparative studies to evaluate changes in individual and organizational behavior. "This is an opportunity to see how things have changed since Andrew," Morrow said. "The county and state have changed and are better prepared. We wanted to see how people and organizations have changed."

The first phase of the project will survey 1,200 households, while the second phase will include interviews with officials from 30-35 organizations involved with emergency operations.

The major question the project seeks to address is: At the time of landfall, were the communities of Miami-Dade and Monroe counties more prepared for the potential effects of Hurricane Georges than they were for Hurricane Andrew? In addition, they want to determine what factors explain differences in disaster response at both the household and community levels. Finally, they want to determine how people and organizations might react next time.

Morrow noted that the research on Andrew established baseline data on hurricane response, and over time they are developing a better understanding of changes in disaster preparation and response.

"We'd like to be poised, so if a storm hits we're ready to go and study it," she said. "It's a good time for sociologists to study social issues and processes. Disasters make a lot of things about a community's social structure, power and resources more obvious."

Surviving and rebuilding

The massive destruction caused by Hurricane Andrew in 1992 - estimated between $26 and $30 billion, the costliest tropical storm in U.S. history - brought the issues of construction, mitigation and the insurance industry into sharp focus.

"We've been taking lessons learned from prior storms - obviously a lot was learned from Andrew - and analyzing it, reaching conclusions, synthesizing it and packaging it in a way that leads to regulation by public agencies," said Jose Mitrani, IHC associate director for physical mitigation and chairperson/associate professor of Construction Management.

Shortly after Hurricane Andrew, Mitrani was one of nine experts appointed to the Dade County Building Code Evaluation Task Force, the group charged with investigating the devastation wrought by the storm, identifying causes, and formulating recommendations for the South Florida Building Code. In 1993, he was appointed to the follow-up Dade County Building Code Committee, which was permanently chartered the following year as the Building Code Committee and Product Review Committee.

The committee reached several key conclusions that had a major impact on the South Florida Building Code, which governs construction regulations in Dade and Broward counties. They determined that the most significant hurricane damage was from the loss of "integrity of the building envelope;" when the exterior of a structure is breached, it sets off a chain of events that leads to more severe damage. This led to the finding that shutters can significantly reduce the damage a building sustains in a hurricane.

The group also established a new set of product approval test criteria for building components, such as windows, doors, skylights, etc. Products that had previously been approved on the basis of engineering calculations were now being subjected to impact and fatigue tests that simulated the flying debris and pressure of a hurricane. Building openings (doors, windows) that could not pass the test require shutters, which are now mandatory for all new construction.

"The work had an immediate impact on millions of people throughout South Florida," Mitrani said. "Products approved in Dade County have become the standard on strength and reliability by which hurricane-resistant products are measured. That product approval is a sign of quality, strength and reliability."

Given his instrumental role strengthening construction standards, Mitrani is understandably upset by legislation he believes will undo the progress that has been made. Last year, the Florida legislature enacted a bill establishing a statewide building code and product approval system, which is slated to go into effect in July 2001. He said the new legislation - justified on the basis of deficiencies in the existing building code system in the state - would bring a return of product approvals based on calculations or "nationally recognized" test standards that do not reflect actual storm conditions. In addition, the statewide building code would have provisions that are much weaker than the South Florida Building Code has ever had, pre- or post-Andrew.

"Some provisions of the legislation are a step in the wrong direction," he said.

Mitrani is planning to repeat research conducted after Andrew to assess the amount of structural protection offered by shutters. He has applied for a grant from the Idaho National Environmental Engineering Laboratory to study comparative damage in 100 pairs of shuttered and non-shuttered buildings after a future hurricane in South Florida.

The results of the study will be of great interest to the insurance industry, which would like Floridians (and residents in other hurricane-prone states) to strengthen their homes and communities against hurricanes. Due to the massive destruction and payouts caused by Andrew, the industry experienced a crisis in Florida. The storm precipitated the bankruptcy of several small insurance companies and exhausted decades of profits enjoyed by State Farm and Allstate, the two largest insurers in the state. As a result, a number of companies canceled the policies of hundreds of thousands of homeowners and/or stopped writing new policies. As members of the state Academic Task Force on Hurricane Catastrophe Insurance, Krishnan Dandapani and Shahid Hamid - respectively, chairperson/professor and associate professor of Finance - have helped remedy the insurance crisis and develop incentives for homeowners to strengthen their homes.

"Universities and academicians had a role to play here," said Hamid. "The Task Force was politically neutral, so in that sense it has become somewhat influential."

After Andrew, the state legislature established the Joint Underwriters Association (JUA), which offered homeowner policies to those who couldn't find private coverage. The JUA - originally established to provide residual coverage - became the third largest insurer in the state, writing 936,000 policies. The legislature also established the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe (CAT) Fund, which would back policies in the event of another disaster like Andrew. The CAT Fund has been fueled by annual surcharges on policies in the state; today the Fund's cash-on-hand and borrowing ability exceeds Andrew's $10 billion of residential losses.

The Academic Task Force made recommendations on the organization and management of the JUA and the CAT Fund. In addition, they helped develop strategies to build up the CAT Fund's reserves, reduce the state's exposure, and shift insurance policies from the JUA back to the private market. As a result of this and other measures, new insurers have re-entered the market, and there are now less than 270,000 JUA policyholders.

A related concern is the issue of homeowners protecting their homes through the retrofitting of shutters and other building components. The magnitude of the problem is truly staggering: 90 percent of the 14 million people who live in Florida reside and work along or near its 1,350 miles of coastline. That translates to four million homes that need hurricane retrofitting at an average cost of $10,000 apiece.

"No one wants to retrofit their homes because they don't have the funds or sufficient incentives to do it," said Dandapani. "We needed to create a public-private partnership to solve this problem."

That partnership, which Dandapani and Hamid helped to create with the Florida Department of Community Affairs, is The Homeowner's Incentive Team (HIT), a group of 18 key industry associations and agencies - both private and public - which have a stake in housing, community welfare and loss reduction. The mission of HIT is to identify and develop financial and administrative benefits for homeowners and contractors that will encourage them to retrofit. Incentives include reduced property taxes, waiving of sales taxes on retrofit materials, insurance premium and deductible reductions, low-interest loans and tax credits.

"We're facilitators," Hamid commented. "We get the various parties to come together and interact."

Looking toward the future, Hamid and Dandapani believe that other financial instruments will be necessary to ensure adequate insurance coverage in the state and other areas vulnerable to natural disasters. Specifically, they envision the involvement of Wall Street and the sale of "catastrophe bonds," securities that would enable the insurance industry to generate a new source of capital.

"In the long-run, that would be the way to solve the problem," Hamid said.

Change through education

In addition to financial and safety incentives for individuals and organizations, the IHC is committed to changing attitudes concerning hurricanes and mitigation.

"We believe that education is an essential component of the IHC's activity," said Ricardo Alvarez, deputy director of the Center. "You can't just look at hurricanes in meteorological terms. We need to consider the impact they have on our communities in terms of loss of life, injury, human suffering, building damage, businesses closed down. ...We need to engage in research, but we must also translate this into practical knowledge and tools for professionals. We're very concerned about practical things - things the community can use and which will benefit the public at large."

Alvarez, an architect and city planner by training, conducted damage assessments for FEMA following Hurricane Andrew, and served as the hazard mitigation officer for Andrew and three other declared disasters in Florida through 1995. He analyzed why some buildings sustained relatively minor damage while others in the vicinity were destroyed; in the process, he looked for measures to reduce the potential for damage from future hurricanes.

Alvarez also discovered that very few universities in the country were addressing the need to provide professionals with an understanding of hurricane damage and how to mitigate it. He subsequently introduced several graduate level courses in the Department of Construction Management, including Topics in Hazard Mitigation, Cases in Hazard Mitigation, and Vulnerability Analysis. In addition, he developed and launched the Emergency Management and Hazard Mitigation Certificate Program, a continuing education program for working professionals and managers in the public and private sectors. Alvarez believes steps must also be taken to introduce hurricane awareness and mitigation education through a K-12 grade program in local schools.

Other areas of Alvarez's work focus on the local potential consequences of global climate change, which may impact among others: the frequency/intensity of hurricanes, the viability of our fresh water resources, sea level rise and beach erosion, and a variety of health issues. In addition to measures to reduce causes of climate change or global warming - greenhouse gases generated by industry and vehicular emissions, for instance - Alvarez asserts that mitigation and education measures must be taken now to reduce future adverse impacts. Last year, he was managing director of the Climate Change and Extreme Events Workshop co-sponsored by the IHC, the NOAA Office of Global Programs, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

"I think we need to create a culture of mitigation in this area," commented Alvarez. "There are actions we can take to protect ourselves and reduce the potential for damage."

The politics of disasters

While meteorology and mitigation are the disciplines that most people are concerned with when it comes to hurricanes, there's another dimension - of particular significance in foreign countries - that two IHC faculty members have been studying: the politics of disasters.

Richard Olson, the We Will Rebuild Foundation Eminent Scholar, and Vincent Gawronski, a post-doctoral research fellow, have made several trips to the Caribbean and Central America since fall 1998 for both research purposes and to act in an advisory capacity for the U.S. federal agency charged with coordinating U.S. government response to catastrophes. In addition, Olson and Gawronski are conducting two projects funded by the National Science Foundation. One is a study of the political and social changes that have taken place in Mexico City since the 1985 earthquake shattered its central core. The second, with a colleague at Southern Methodist University, is a study of disasters and political instability worldwide over a 25-year period.

Olson has been studying the socioeconomic and political aspects of disasters - earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes - for more than 30 years and has worked extensively with the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), a division of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Last September, just about the time Hurricane Georges traveled from the Dominican Republic into Haiti, OFDA officials asked him if the IHC could send representatives to the Dominican Republic to help assess the politically charged situation. Olson and Gawronski were soon on the scene to study damage patterns in the battered nation.

"I was looking especially at the blame game," Olson said. "How blame (for the death and destruction) was being assigned and who was taking the fall." He found that the "official" death toll in the Dominican Republic varied considerably - from the 289 figure initially issued by the president's office to 1,200-1,400 mentioned by members of the country's congress.

"The political climate influences the official numbers on people killed," Olson said. "The death figures are highly political." He said that one of the "blame games" was to point to a breakdown between the country's meteorological service and civil defense that led to very late public warnings of Hurricane Georges' impact.

When Gawronski was in the Dominican Republic, the U.S. embassy personally handled the delivery of emergency supplies to affected areas, a move that reflected doubts about the ability of the Dominican government to ensure that supplies reached those in need.

Gawronski personally participated in delivering supplies to devastated areas. "Although I went down there as an academic, I wound up doing a whole lot of participating and not just observing," he commented.

Olson said "Georges was going to be our hurricane of the year, then Mitch came along .... For Honduras, Mitch was a true catastrophe, with 70 percent of the land affected one way or another." The death toll from Mitch can still only be expressed in the roughest of estimates: 400 to 600 in Guatemala and El Salvador, 3,000 to 3,800 in Nicaragua, and no fewer than 6,000 in Honduras, with 8,000 people still missing.

"We never should have seen those casualties, 9,000 to 12,000 from Mitch," said Olson, adding that the absence of adequate warning and evacuation procedures was responsible for the high number of deaths. "Those are unacceptable for a slow moving storm, this is just way out of line. There's something terribly wrong with having those casualties in a 1998 event. They need to do a lot of housekeeping, and we need to assist."

Several weeks after Mitch struck, Olson made a presentation on the politics of disasters at a meeting of OFDA's Disaster Assistance Response Team in San Jose, Costa Rica. He and Gawronski have been asked to provide follow-up on reconstruction issues. "We'll be doing a long-term review," Olson said. "We'll be looking at blame, response and other issues."

Olson said that most of the infrastructure of Honduras was damaged or destroyed by Mitch, a reality that poses serious problems for years to come in terms of rebuilding - and the likelihood of corruption influencing that arduous process.

"Unfortunately, the disaster business is growing," Olson said.

For more information on the IHC, visit its website at www.fiu.edu/~hurrican