An LSU Ph.D. student is working to develop a computer model that can better predict the strength and impact of a hurricane by simulating rainfall runoff and storm surges.
Felix Santiago-Collazo was motivated to work on the model after family and home in Puerto Rico was greatly affected by last year’s storms, according to an LSU announcement.
“During a hurricane impact you have two common events: you have rainfall and you have storm surge. These two happen simultaneously or in close succession,” Santiago-Collazo says. “Usually, the stakeholders, as well as the modelers, they take these two separately and they do not take into account the combined effect of both during the hurricane.”
In September 2017, Santiago-Collazo was home in Puerto Rico finishing up his master’s degree at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez when Hurricane Maria devastated the island, leaving them without electricity or phone connections for weeks.
Santiago-Collazo says that experience motivated him the new computer model. He was able to finish his master’s degree, and moved to Baton Rouge to begin his Ph.D. at LSU.
“What we want to do is a numerical code that can quantify this combination of both flooding mechanisms and we can have it all in a single platform to be easier for stakeholders and for agencies to delineate and determine the compound flooding that can affect during a hurricane impact,” Santiago-Collazo says.
The National Science Foundation is funding his graduate work at LSU. Read the full story.
