.. _lbl-testbed_LC_hazard_characterization: *********************** Hazard Characterization *********************** This testbed considers the wind hazard and its affect on the building inventory. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), working with Applied Research Associates, Inc. (ARA), has developed a rapid response estimate of the surface-level wind field for Hurricane Laura in support of a Mission Assignment from FEMA. The wind field, shown in :numref:`pws_field` was produced on September 4, 2020, and is available to be downloaded from `DesignSafe `_. It incorporates storm track and central pressure data from the National Hurricane Center through Forecast Advisory Number 33 and observations through 1200 UTC on 08/28/2020. The wind hazard is quantified by the peak 3 second gust measured at :math:`10m` height under open terrain conditions. .. figure:: figure/WindField.png :name: pws_field :align: center :figclass: align-center :figwidth: 600 Peak wind speeds generated by ARA, Release 3 (3s-gust at 10 m in open terrain). For Lake Charles itself, the ARA wind field is first mapped to a rectangular grid with 0.01 to 0.02 degree intervals. Then peak wind speed at each building site is then randomly sampled from its nearest 4 neighboring grid points. :numref:`pws_interp` shows the averaged peak wind speed from 1000 random samples for each building site in our area of interest. The wind speed is relatively stable in the region, ranging from :math:`131 mph` to :math:`135 mph`. .. figure:: figure/PeakWindSpeed.png :name: pws_interp :align: center :figclass: align-center :figwidth: 600 Peak wind speeds interpolated to footprint locations of building inventory. Users can access the the interpolated wind field inputs for the defined scenario via :numref:`lc_wind_data`. .. list-table:: Access point for Hurricane Laura wind scenario file :name: lc_wind_data :header-rows: 1 :align: center * - Hazard - Access Point * - Wind Field - `Interpolated Hurricane Laura wind data `_