Waves, Surge, and Damage to the Built Environment During Super Typhoon Haiyan

Andrew Kennedy, PhD                                                                                                                                                     Thursday, November 20, 2014
Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental                                                                                                                3:30pm – 4:30pm
Engineering and Earth Sciences, University of Notre Dame                                                                                                                        138 Debartolo

With estimated 195mph winds, Super Typhoon Haiyan may have been the strongest storm of the satellite era when it made landfall in the Philippines in November, 2013. Damage was catastrophic, with greater than 90% of buildings experiencing severe roof loss and many large reinforced concrete buildings simply blown over. Surge inundated large areas of Tacloban, the largest city in the region, destroyed houses, and grounded large cargo ships far onto dry land. On the open Pacific coastline, waves ran up to extreme elevations, tossed around giant boulders, and devastated small towns. More than 6,000 people were killed, and tens of thousands of buildings destroyed.
Two post-storm reconnaissance trips show the extent of the damage – what failed, how, and what lessons might be learned. Recovery is very slow, both because of the extent of the damage, and because the Philippines is a relatively poor country and recovery was dependent to a large degree on external aid from many sources.


Andrew Kennedy is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering & Earth Sciences at the University of Notre Dame. He works in Coastal Science and Engineering problems, and performed fieldwork at numerous sites both in the United States and abroad.