Making the most of storm damage

(image from Wikipedia)

In March of 2008, a tornado outbreak made its way through the city of Atlanta, GA. Roofs were damaged on low rise structures, trees were uprooted and glass damage was common to the high rise structures in the tornado's path. A year later, the city and building owners chose to make the best of the situation by rebuilding "Green".

Atlanta rebuilds "Green" after tornado. from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (registration may be required)

Saga of glass damage in hurricanes

Hurricane Ike impacted the Houston CBD at 2:30am on Sept. 13, 2008. Interesting damage patterns emerged, prompting engineers and researchers to examine the issue of urban aerodynamics related to glass damage.

The NatHaz Lab collected images of the damage, eyewitness accounts and utilized various techniques to assess the causes of glass/cladding damage to the JP Morgan Chase Tower (wikipedia link).

An earlier preliminary report of this investigation can be found on the NatHaz website. A direct link to the report is here (link to .pdf of report). Details of the findings since the earlier report, being presented at 11ACWE, can be viewed here (link to .pdf of full paper)

We invite you to post comments and your ideas about our findings, or the overall issue, in the "comments" section.

There is a lot to be learned!