The Impact of Hurricane Harvey on Pavement Structures in the South East Texas and South West Louisiana

Abstract

This study developed a methodology to estimate the damage caused by flooding, such that caused by Hurricane Harvey, on a road or street network. The flooded street or pavement sections are identified using GIS flood maps with street GIS maps used for pavement management systems (PMS) by cities or state authorities. Then the damage caused by flooding directly through the increase moisture in foundation layers or indirectly due to the increase heavy traffic during the relief effort is estimated. An example Excel macro was created to illustrate the estimation process. The methodology estimates the increase in rehabilitation costs since the flooding imposes that many rehabilitation works must be done earlier than anticipated before the flooding. The methodology also estimated the increase in fuel consumption caused by the increased in pavement roughness if the rehabilitation works are done when anticipated before the flooding. The methodology and the Excel macro can also be used to identify the pavement structures with better resilience to the flooding by grouping sections based on the flooding duration (no flooding, single and multiple day flooding) and on design features such as pavement type, functional class, age or time from the most recent resurfacing or reconstruction, subgrade soil type, traffic volume, layer thickness