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Discover how storm surge poses the greatest threat during hurricane season, and how FloodWise empowers communities with real-time flood forecasting to enhance coastal resilience and emergency preparedness.
Each year, as the Atlantic Hurricane Season unfolds from June 1st through November 30th, communities across the Eastern Seaboard and Gulf Coast must prepare for a range of hazards associated with hurricanes and extreme weather events. While destructive winds and torrential rainfall often dominate headlines and capture public attention, it is often storm surge that generates the most destruction and lethality during these storms.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), storm surge poses the greatest threat to life and property during hurricanes, often accounting for more deaths and long-term damage than any other hurricane-related hazard. This is why understanding its risks and mechanics is essential for effective emergency planning and public safety.
What Is Storm Surge?
Storm surge is the abnormal and often rapid rise in sea level that occurs when a storm’s powerful winds push seawater toward the shore. This elevated water level, even occurring on top of normal tides, can flood vast inland areas in a matter of hours.
According to the National Hurricane Center, many Atlantic and Gulf Coast communities lie less than 10 feet above mean sea level. In the Gulf Coast region specifically, 27% of major roads are at or below 4 feet in elevation, making them highly susceptible to inundation.
Storm surge becomes especially dangerous when it coincides with high tide, amplifying water levels and expanding the reach and intensity of flooding. In extreme cases, storm surge can exceed 20 feet above normal sea level.
Why Is Storm Surge So Dangerous?
Although hurricane-force winds can rip off roofs and heavy rain can trigger flash floods, storm surge has the devastating power, capable of:
- Inundating homes, infrastructure, and entire communities within hours
- Destroying buildings through the combined force of water and battering waves
- Eroding coastlines and weakening foundations, rendering structures unstable
- Severing access to critical roadways, utilities, and emergency response personnel
- Causing saltwater intrusion into freshwater ecosystems, endangering public health and local wildlife
Water weighs approximately 1,700 pounds per cubic yard. When combined with repeated wave action, this force can compromise or destroy any structure not specifically engineered to withstand such conditions. The result is often widespread devastation to both built and natural environments.
What Influences Storm Surge Severity?
Storm surge is influenced by multiple storm-specific and geographic factors, including:
- Storm Intensity: Stronger winds create higher surges
- Storm Size and Forward Speed: Larger and slower-moving storms may extend flooding further inland
- Angle of Approach: Perpendicular landfalls often generate higher surges than oblique or parallel approaches
- Ocean Bottom Profile: Shallow, gently sloping continental shelves (e.g., Louisiana) produce higher surge levels than steep, quickly deepening shelves (e.g., Southeastern Florida)
- Coastal Shape and Features: Concave coastlines, bays, and estuaries tend to trap and amplify surge levels
Understanding these variables is crucial, particularly when planning for public safety and emergency management. However, until recently, it has been difficult to accurately forecast the real-time impact that storm surge will have on a specific community.
FloodWise: Enhancing Real-Time Insights in the Face of Flood Events
Without early warnings and accurate information on impending floods, communities are more likely to face higher death tolls, financial costs, and infrastructure destruction.
Developed by Streamline Technologies, FloodWise is a real-time flood forecasting software engineered to provide reliable, real-time flood risk insights when it matters most.
FloodWise is designed to support government agencies, municipalities, and emergency response teams by delivering precise, localized flood risk insights days in advance of a storm making landfall.
Key Features and Capabilities Include:
- High-Resolution Forecasting: Combines meteorological data, sea level models, terrain, and hydraulics to produce location-specific forecasts in real-time.
- Real-Time Updates: Continuously adapts to changing conditions, enabling up-to-date risk assessments
- Localized Flood Risks: Produces flood risk forecasts at the street, house, and critical infrastructure level of a given area
- Actionable Outputs: Produces flood extent, depth, and timing forecasts for use in evacuation planning, emergency response, and resource deployment
- Compound Flood Modeling: Evaluates the interaction between coastal surge and inland rainfall/runoff
- What-If Scenarios: Empowers coastal communities to plan, save lives, and mitigate damage by simulating what-if scenarios as a storm is approaching
In an era of rapidly intensifying hurricanes, FloodWise represents a critical step forward in flood forecast modeling and disaster preparedness.
Facing a Rising Risk
With shifting climate patterns and increasingly powerful hurricanes, storm surge is expected to become more frequent and severe. Areas that were once marginally at risk may soon face significant threats, and already vulnerable regions could experience unprecedented levels of damage.
By integrating advanced modeling, real-time data, and actionable intelligence, FloodWise empowers communities to prepare for, respond to, and recover from coastal flood events with greater confidence and precision.
The stakes are high, and the time to act is now – Contact our team today to learn more and stay ahead of flood events like never before.
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