Abstract:
Hurricane Wilma made landfall as a category 2 storm south of
Fort Meyers, Florida on October 24, 2005. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS),
NASA, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are cooperating in a research
project investigating coastal change that might result from Hurricane Wilma.
Pre-landfall vulnerability estimates for west Florida's barrier islands falling
... within the cone of uncertainty for Wilma's path are available. These maps
highlight the extreme vulnerability of the West-Florida coastline to a direct
hit from a storm of Wilma's predicted magnitude.
Aerial video, still photography, and laser altimetry surveys of post-storm
beach conditions will be collected for comparison with earlier data as soon as
weather allows. The comparisons will show the nature, magnitude, and spatial
variability of coastal changes such as beach erosion, overwash deposition, and
island breaching. These data will also be used to further refine predictive
models of coastal impacts from severe storms. The data will be made available
to local, state, and federal agencies for purposes of disaster recovery and
erosion mitigation.
[Summary provided by the USGS.] 
