NEER/GEER: Hurricanes Helene & Milton Dataset, in Multidisciplinary Pre, During and Post Storm Data Collection.

In Fall of 2024, central Florida was impacted by Hurricane Helene (landfall in Perry, FL as a Cat 4 hurricane on Sept 27) and by Hurricane Milton (landfall in Siesta Key, FL as Cat 3 on Oct 9). The hurricanes led to damages of an estimated value > $200billion. The Nearshore Extreme Events Reconnaissance Association (NEER) and the Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance Association (GEER) represented by their members from more than 10 academic institutions, federal agencies, and industry and supported by technical staff from the NHERI RAPID facility and the UF Center for Coastal Solutions initiated on Sept 23 a data collection effort. The field data collection that included pre-, during-, and post-storm multi-disciplinary data. was concluded on Nov 22. Data includes hydraulic information on storm surge, waves, and currents, topographic and bathymetric data sets, terrestrial and seabed mapping, and geotechnical site characterization including in-situ testing, sediment sampling, and seismic testing. Data was collected in four focus areas in Florida (Cedar Key; Horseshoe Beach; Midnight Pass and Milton Pass, both near Venice), and observational data and limited data products were collected in other areas in Florida including Orchid, Ponte Vedra, Suwannee, and others. Data is organized by four primary sites and others; data collection phase with respect to the two hurricanes; and instruments or data collection method. Published datasets include at this time mostly raw data and metadata, and some processed products. Additional processed products will be made available via versioning expected to be published on a quarterly bases until the end of 2025. An overview of data collection procedures regarding data collected by the UW NHERI RAPID facility is provided in the Collection "Overall RAPID Metadata". A spatial overview of the survey areas is provided through HazMapper.

The datasets published in this project are considered unique in terms of volume, details, multi-disciplinary nature, and by featuring pre-storm, during-storm, and post-storm data products. Data was collected by experts from the fields of coastal engineering, geotechnical engineering, structural engineering, physical oceanography, geosciences, and geophysics in a collaborative manner through two main phases of joint field data collection. The multi-disciplinary nature of the datasets - including information about hydrodynamics, geomorphology, and detailed soil characterization - enables a comprehensive reflection of governing processes leading to infrastructure impacts from water processes during the hurricanes. The collection of pre-, during-, and post-changes enables to draw data-based relations between impacts, change and the governing processes, and different drivers.

The project PIs envision that the datasets are of interest to a wide range of users studying coastal processes, the interaction of storm surge and storm waves with the built environment and infrastructure, soil-water interaction and resulting sediment dynamics and instability, and in hurricane damage analysis. Data may serve as base for case studies, and/or for calibration or validation of numerical models, to name just a few possible applications.

The data collection effort was coordinated by the lead PIs (Nina Stark, UF, and Michael Gardner, UCDavis) and the NHERI RAPID operations manager (Michael Grilliot, UW NHERI RAPID) with the goals to collect comprehensive, multi-disciplinary, and pre-, during-, and post-data. Focus sites were chosen based on pre-existing datasets and predicted storm impacts, as well as observed storm impacts. Data collection strategies were developed based on site specific conditions, data needs, team member expertise, and instrument availability. Scientific and engineering expert team members were supported in logistics and instrument operations by technical staff of the UF Center for Coastal Solutions and of the UW NHERI RAPID facility. Many data collection sites were made accessible by private community members who provided access to the research team.

Detailed information about these datasets is in the published Data Report