Effective Forensic Engineering Investigations of Hurricane ''Wind vs. Water'' Disputes: Techniques and Tools

Hurricane Katrina made landfall near the mouth of the Mississippi River in southeast Louisiana and again at the Pearl River delta on the Louisiana/Mississippi border on the morning of August 29, 2005, as a Category 3 intensity storm on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. Katrina brought high winds and devastating storm surge to locations across southeast Louisiana and coastal Mississippi, destroying many homes and other structures as it passed. FEMA estimated that the total economic losses due to the storm were in excess of $125 billion. The American Red Cross estimated that 275,000 homes were damaged by the storm. In the storm's aftermath, many homeowners and business owners with properties in flooded areas found themselves engaged in disputes with their insurers over the distribution of their flood and wind damage claims. The resolution of these disputes has been complicated by the fact that multiple damage mechanisms contributed to the total damage that property owners were faced with upon their return. Decomposing the resultant damage into its respective components is not always an easy task. It requires an accurate technical knowledge of the environmental conditions and their timing, and an engineering background deep enough to understand the effects that these conditions would have on structures.