Abstract
In order to limit the amount of damage caused by hazards, mitigation efforts must be made. To make the most educated decision on mitigation projects, there needs to be a tool where data on all past hazard events can be centralized. Currently, there is no such tool available in Miami-Dade County. Although the data can be easily obtained, it is hard to identify any correlations or long-term trends without the data on hazard events being centralized. By combining natural hazard event details from archived newspapers, Storm Prediction Center Severe Weather Database Files, National Hurricane Center Storm Wallet Archive, Spatial Hazards Events and Losses Database (SHELDUS), an accurate natural hazard events database can be constructed for the period of 1950- Present. Analysis of the data showed there has been a substantial increase in the number of natural hazard occurrences in Miami-Dade County in the last fifty years. The increase in number of occurrences is especially notable in the decades of 1980 to present. The research also showed a corresponding increase in the amount of property and agricultural damage in the past fifty years. Most notable are the general increases in the natural hazards of wind, hail, hurricanes, lightning, and flooding in the time period analyzed. Having a centralized database will ensure that mitigation projects that are approved and completed by the LMS Working Group address actual threats by hazards. This database will also result in the best allocation of county mitigation dollars.