Category 5 Hurricane Michael made landfall near Mexico Beach, Florida on October 9, 2018, with measured high water marks (HWMs) reaching 7.2 m NAVD88. The town itself received great damage, with many areas destroyed down to the foundations. In this study, we document the storm and its effects on the greater Mexico Beach area: hazard, structural damage, and their relationships. Wave and surge damage was nearly total for low-lying properties, but damage decreased greatly with increasing elevation. Major wave and surge damage was noted in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) X zones, which are out of the 100-year floodplain, and it is suggested that the 100-year storm is a deficient measure for categorizing flood risk.

An experiment using a physical model of a coastal city was conducted to simulate tsunami and storm surge conditions which may lead to city inundation. The results of the physical experiment were compared with those from a subgrid numerical model based on the shallow water equation using the topography of the physical experiment obtained from LIDAR scanning. The experiment aims to provide a better understanding on the variation of tsunami or storm surge inundation level at different locations of the city due to the ground elevation, building arrangement, and shielding effects. The result from this experiment will serve to increase the accuracy of coastal numerical models and revise the current hazard maps and evacuation plans.Recorded Presentation from the vICCE (YouTube Link): https://youtu.be/k4v5EotRpfg

This coastal hazards emphasize the need for engineers to understand the fundamental processes causing damage and the potential of maximum damage in order to design coastal communities with increased resilience to tsunami events. Common methods used to evaluate local conditions caused by tsunamis include post-disaster reconnaissance field surveys, numerical modelling, and laboratory experiments. Behavior of land side tsunami, inundation, is not well known as well as the fluid forcing, fragility characteristics and accuracy of tsunami hazard mapping. This study targets to understand local tsunami behavior in a city scale including complex buildings and improve modelling of tsunami inundation in an urban area. Laboratory experiments are an essential starting point in the investigation of urban roughness effects on wave propagation and maximum pressures in coastal communities. Physical modelling usually uses solitary wave, bore wave, and wave imitating Nankai Trough Earthquake as a tsunami wave.Recorded Presentation from the vICCE (YouTube Link): https://youtu.be/-4niVrzXviE

Off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, many ships, containers, cars, and wooden debris of collapsed houses were drifted by a huge tsunami. Their drift objects prevented the rapid elimination of obstacles and debris on land and sea. In addition, in areas where tsunami-fire occurred, accumulated wooden debris caused the large-scale fire spread. Generally, when assuming tsunami damages in urban areas, the inundation depth and arrival time of tsunami are mostly used. In order to enhance the tsunami damage assumptions in urban areas, to understand the characteristic of tsunami flow and the behavior of drift objects in urban areas is also important. However, it is very difficult to measure the state of actual tsunami flow and the behavior of drift objects by tsunami flow. This study aims to understand the characteristics of drift objects behavior in an urban area through a series of experiments in a laboratory flume. This study also validates numerical simulation model by comparing with the experimental results.Recorded Presentation from the vICCE (YouTube Link): https://youtu.be/09KWpiVSbmU

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