Overview of Damage Observed in Regional Construction during the Passage of Hurricane Irma over the State of Florida

Hurricane Irma made its first landfall in the continental U.S. at Cudjoe Key in southern Florida on September 10, 2017, with Category 4 winds. Irma made its second landfall later that afternoon on Marco Island on Florida's Gulf Coast, as a Category 3 storm, weakening further as it moved north. Reconnaissance teams respectively dedicated to the Gulf Coast, Atlantic Coast, and Miami/Florida Keys carried on a first wave of rapid reconnaissance from September 15-20, 2017. A second more exhaustive campaign was then conducted in the Florida Keys on September 22-25, 2017. These investigations employed primarily door-to-door damage assessments to classify buildings and evaluate component damage levels using a Fulcrum mobile smartphone application for data collection in a unified assessment framework feeding into a quality assurance/quality control process. At select locations, unmanned aerial surveys generated aerial imagery, 3D point clouds, and 3D textured meshes. This study presents the geospatial distribution of observed damage, correlated by age of construction, typology, construction materials, and estimated wind speed. Specific case studies highlight common failure modes observed in different construction classes and editions of the Florida Building Code.