Team: 25
School: Las Cruces High
Area of Science: Weather
Interim: Team Number: 25
School Name: Las Cruces High School
Area of Science: Weather
Project Title: Predicting Average Cost for Hurricane Repairs
Problem Definition:
With the increase in global temperatures and hurricane intensity, the destructive power of these horrific tropical storms has increased and they have been known to cause massive economic loss. The CBO estimates that, on average, a hurricane causes about $28 billion a year in damages. Having an understanding of how much a hurricane can affect a city is important to rebuilding the economy and all the homes that have been damaged or even completely destroyed. Our goal is to create a program that will simulate a neighborhood that is struck by a hurricane, and is left with a varying amount of damage in the hurricanes aftermath. Based on the damages afflicted to the homes an estimation of the damages will be created. The program will make multiple estimations and give us a range of costs. Estimations like these can be used to prepare for future hurricanes and the damaging effects they leave in their wake.
Problem Solution:
In our simulation a neighborhood will be struck by a hurricane with specific characteristics, leaving the possible varying amounts of damage to each house. The computer will be responsible for calculating the cost of the damages caused by factors like wind speed, storm surge, waves, and flooding by creating a variable determining how much each unit of a house will cost and how many units were lost in the aftermath of the hurricane. This will, in theory, help us predict the aftermath of the hurricane and the damages caused. More specifically it will help us predict the most affected areas of our specific neighborhood.
Progress to Date:
Research has been obtained to prepare for the coding of our simulation. This data includes the average amount of damages recent hurricanes have afflicted on to cities in the past. Data also includes areas affected by previous storms to help us understand how much costly a hurricane can be to the community destroyed. To take advantage of this data, our chosen programming language is Net Logo, due to the fact we can use GIS data within our programming. Brainstorming how to code this has been complete and is now underway.
Expected Results:
After programming and testing we expect the simulation to give us a range of the possible damages caused by specific conditions over the course of a hurricanes life. Hopefully it will not only be used to accurately predict the cost of damages, but to spread awareness for people to be insured if they are in high risk areas. In years to come we hope to expand and refine our program to include not only a single neighborhood but an entire community and even cities and towns. After expanding the area of our experiment we hope to form an even larger understanding of hurricanes, their effects, and the damages to any area a hurricane is scheduled to hit.
Team Members: Steven Linares, Austin Wilson
Sponsoring Teacher: Lauren Curry
Work Cited
Amadeo, K. (n.d.). How Hurricanes Damage the Economy. Retrieved December 5, 2018, from https://www.thebalance.com/hurricane-damage-economic-costs-4150369
October 2018: Hurricane Michael. (n.d.). Retrieved November 12, 2018, from https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/oct18/michael-storm-imagery.html
Yan, H. (2018, October 12). Michael's not done yet -- path of destruction stretches north from Florida. Retrieved November 12, 2018, from https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/11/us/hurricane-michael-tropical-storm-wxc/index.html
CBS/AP. (2018, October 12). Michael's death toll jumps as crews search for survivors - live updates. Retrieved December 5, 2018, from https://www.cbsnews.com/live-news/hurricane-michael-damage-florida-flooding-georgia-power-outage-weather-deaths-today-live-updates/
Editors. (2018, October 12). Hurricane Michael: Where the storm is now, what we know about damage. Retrieved December 5, 2018, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/10/12/hurricane-michael-where-storm-now-what-we-know-damage/1611783002/
Team Members:
Sponsoring Teacher: Lauren Curry