Vulnerability of Southwest Florida Water Infrastructure under the Impacts of Hurricane

Water infrastructure in Southwest Florida (SWFL) exposed its vulnerability when Hurricane Irma directly hit the region in 2017. This study empirically investigated the hurricane impacts on water infrastructure of two counties in this region. Data were collected from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) and other publicly available sources. Employing a data-analytics approach for unstructured data, this study evaluates the extent of vulnerability in terms of the number, duration, and cause of the incidents with and without the impacts of the hurricane and its aftermath. The number of incidents increased 30 times in the month of Irma aftermath. The total duration of incidents was also substantially prolonged. While the causes varied under the normal conditions, power outage appeared to be the major cause of incidents during the hurricane aftermath. The findings of this study contribute to our understanding on the level of vulnerability of water infrastructure, especially in moderately populated areas. Further studies should be performed to compare with similar events around the world.