Keywords

reconnaissance, hurricane, sinkhole, karst, erosion, scour, beach, dam, infrastructure

Abstract

Hurricane Irma affected the Florida peninsula from September 9-11, 2017, with high winds, rainfall, and storm surge. Although the storm made landfall on the west coast of Florida, impacts of the rainfall and storm surge affected central and northeast Florida. A GEER team mobilized on September 23, 2017, spent three days documenting sinkhole damage in central Florida, coastal scour and erosion along the northeast coast of Florida, and infrastructure damage in northeast Florida. Numerous sites with geotechnical damage were documented but this case history focuses specifically on sinkhole damage in The Villages, erosion and scour at Vilano Beach, failure of a concrete cover earth dam at Hampton Lake, and bridge embankment damage on US-17 over the Trout River. The most notable challenges to reconnaissance were the widespread and varied nature of the damages from Hurricane Irma and the rapid repair of damaged infrastructure that required the team to work closely with local, state, and federal officials to obtain documentation of the damage prior to repair.

DOI