Collection of Perishable Data on Wind- and Surge-Induced Residential Building Damage During Hurricane Harvey (TX)

Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Port Aransas on August 25, 2017 as a Category IV hurricane. Wind gusts over 130 mph were measured in Rockport, TX before Harvey moved further inland, causing historical flooding in and around Houston, TX. This project focused on engineering assessments of wind and surge damage to buildings in cities and communities including Rockport, Fulton, Port Aransas, Portland, Sinton, Seadrift, and more. It contains georeferenced reconnaissance data captured with support from an NSF RAPID project (CMMI 17-59996). The project includes a total of 1,177 individual building assessments. Each georeferenced assessment includes descriptions of any observed damage to the building, geotagged photographs of the post-hurricane condition of the building, and a number of key building attributes such as year built, roof shape, number of stories, construction materials, and first floor elevation. In addition, the dataset also contains street sign failures, high water marks, and other hazard indicators than can be used to infer hazard characteristics such as wind direction and storm surge inundation height. The data underwent a rigorous quality control process to improve the accuracy of the data and reduce uncertainties. All data is provided in open-source formats, allowing it to be used in a wide variety of analysis and GIS software such as Python, Matlab, QGIS, and Hazmapper.
The dataset is ideally suited for integration with other non-engineering studies, such as radar observations of the Hurricane Harvey wind field, longitudinal studies of community recovery, and explorations of homeowner pre- and post-hurricane behavior. A description of the dataset is available in the data paper entitled "Harvey_CMMI1759996_DataPaper.pdf". Scholarly products are also included in the dataset that provide more information regarding the data collection and processing methodology.