Advances in Hurricane Engineering Conference

Hurricane engineering has evolved since Hurricane Andrew wreaked havoc on South Florida and Louisiana nearly 20 years ago. One of the most devastating natural disasters in United States history, Andrew taught us much about how these powerful storms affect our built environment.

The Applied Technology Council (ATC) and the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) are teaming up to present the Advances in Hurricane Engineering Conference in Miami, October 24-26, 2012. This is the second joint conference of these two organizations in a growing partnership to benefit the engineering community regarding natural hazard issues.

We invite you to join us in discussing how design practices are evolving to meet the building and infrastructure challenges presented by powerful hurricanes. This conference is being designed to define what we’ve learned, illustrate how these lessons have affected losses, and bridge the gap to identify what we still must learn.

A fitting choice as the host city for this event, Miami and its history allow us to see how far we’ve come in our understanding. Much has changed in building codes and standards and in products designed to resist the impacts from strong hurricanes, however, there is still a great deal to improve upon. As recently as six years ago, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast eclipsing Hurricane Andrew as the nation’s worst natural disaster.

The Conference Program

We are currently inviting nationally recognized plenary speakers and building a program rich in topics such as:

• Wind Engineering
• Coastal Flooding
• Engineering for the Building Envelope
• Low-Rise Buildings
• High-Rise Buildings
• Infrastructure
• Meteorology and Oceanography
• Risk Modeling and Forensic Engineering

Visits to the following sites are being considered:

• RWDI Wind Tunnel
• National Hurricane Center
• Florida International University
• Beach fill project site