ADVISORY/10 Years After Hurricane Andrew, Wind Speed Questions to be Answered At FIU Summit.

Business & News Editors/Environment & Education Writers

ADVISORY...for Thursday & Friday (May 30-31)

MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 2, 2002

It has taken experts 10 years of piecing together shreds of information to come up with a clear portrait of Hurricane Andrew and the winds it brought ashore south of Miami in the summer of 1992. A major part of the difficulty has come from the fact that, like many roofs, wind speed instruments were blown away.

During the Hurricane Andrew 10th Anniversary Summit, to be held at Florida International University May 30 - 31, the long-standing question of wind speed finally will be answered.

"We will get a picture of this hurricane never seen before," said conference organizer Ricardo Alvarez of the FIU International Hurricane Center. "A picture has been painted with a variety of tools, including satellite images, data collected from airplanes, as well as ground information."

Knowing Andrew's wind speeds is central to a great deal of other research dealing with the issue of hurricane loss reduction and will have a direct impact on building design criteria, construction methods and building codes being formulated in Florida and other coastal states.

"We know the kind of damage Andrew did - blew roofs off houses, broke windows, breached walls, leveled entire neighborhoods. It is still critical to know what specific force winds were responsible for that kind of devastation," said Alvarez, an expert in hazard mitigation -- a field that, in part, grew out of the aftermath of Andrew.

Hazard mitigation experts assess the potential for damage to buildings, facilities, communities or cities - from both natural and human hazards - in order to identify alternatives for damage reduction before the "next one" strikes.

The Andrew Summit will examine a series of related topics, including:

-- The need to fund hurricane research at a level similar to earthquakes, which
historically have produced less damage;

-- Sheltering in place as an alternative to mass evacuations;

-- Social issues and demographic effects of a disaster;

-- Building codes and practices as means to mitigate damage;

-- The role of education in creating a culture of mitigation in vulnerable
communities.

Note to Editors: Members of the media interested in covering any aspect of the conference may request credentials by faxing a business card, including e-mail address, to 305-348-3333, or by e-mailing pertinent contact information to [e-mail].

Full information on the conference is available at http://www.ihc.fiu.edu/ihc/summit or by calling 305-348-1607.