Overview

The nation will remember 2004 as a record-setting year in terms of presidential disaster declarations and administered disaster aid. In 2004, President Bush issued 68 disaster declarations of which 27 were due to hurricanes. Time and again the U.S. was impacted by hurricane force winds and waves that damaged cities and small towns in 15 states, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Of all the regions that endured the hurricane season, the State of Florida bore the brunt of the record-setting storms as Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne tested the federal and state fortitude in disaster response and recovery. Communities were devastated as wind and water damage from the four storms battered residential, commercial, industrial, and public facilities. Disaster assistance totaling more than $4.4 billion was approved for Floridians, and to date, 1.24 million storm victims have applied for federal and state assistance (FEMA 2005b). The financial impact of the season will likely exceed $20 billion, according to preliminary loss estimates from the Insurance Services Office's Property Claim Services (PCS). The four hurricanes that struck Florida in 2004 were all significant events; however, the hurricanes were each distinctive in terms of their wind and water action and resulting damages. The first of these, Charley (designated a Category 4), was the first design level wind event to strike the U.S. mainland since Hurricane Andrew (1992) and caused more wind damage than flood damage. Frances (Category 2) and Jeanne (Category 3), while not as strong as Charley, were still very damaging hurricanes resulting in additional wind damage. Hurricane Ivan delivered not only strong winds (Category 3), but also caused significant flood damage to buildings and other structures, even those built above the 100-year flood elevation. The impact of the four hurricanes was intensified by their back-to-back occurrence; three of the hurricanes followed similar paths or had overlapping damage swaths. Frances and Jeanne followed almost identical paths across Florida from the east coast (around Port St. Lucie) to the west coast (north of Tampa area). These two very wide storms crossed the path of Charley (which traveled west to east) in central Florida creating an overlap of impacted areas in Orange, Osceola, Polk, and Hardee counties. As a result of these overlapping impact swaths, damage resulting from the later hurricanes (Frances and Jeanne) was difficult to distinguish from earlier damage caused by Charley. For instance, roofs that failed during Frances or Jeanne may have been weakened or damaged by Charley and more prone to failure. For this reason, most of the recommendations and conclusions contained in this report are based on observations made after Hurricanes Charley and Ivan and are supported by observations made after Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne. Following Hurricanes Charley and Ivan, the FEMA Mitigation Assessment Teams (MATs) performed field observations to determine how well buildings in Florida and Alabama performed under stresses caused by the storms' wind and water impacts. A Rapid Response Data Collection Team performed field observations after Hurricane Frances that focused on critical and essential facilities; however an assessment was not performed after Jeanne, because Jeanne and Frances impacted a similar region. Overall, the MAT observed building performance success in structural systems designed and built after Hurricane Andrew. This Summary Report focuses on the ongoing need for improvement in building performance.

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