FEMA is about to release a major update to its regional loss estimation methodology software. HAZards US-Multi-Hazard (HAZUS-MH) has been on a major release cycle every one to two years. The current release, known as MR 5, has been released in early 2011, but it’s not the big change. The big change is the soon to be released HAZUS 2.0 which should be available in the next few weeks for use in the 2011 Hurricane Season. In fact, you can pre-order a copy of the software by going to FEMA’s Map Service Center: http://msc.fema.gov/portal (look under the “Product Catalog” option at the top left).

So what’s all the hype about the new 2.0 release?

Recent conference calls sponsored by HAZUS User Groups have begun to get into the details of the new changes. First and foremost, the HAZUS model will now address an item that Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coast communities have been clamoring for since the beginning…the ability to model storm surge. While this is not a new engineering model itself, it does allow you to run the hurricane (wind) and flood models, and then reconcile the estimated impacts from both events. In the past, you would have had to either double count results, pick the larger of the two, or set up some other mechanism outside of HAZUS to estimate the combined impacts from each of the two individual model runs. Other major news: The software itself has gone through a significant software architecture upgrade to make it more in line with current programs and operating systems. This will allow the software to work with ESRI’s ArcMap 10 and will also allow for the program to be more easily updated in the future. The final major change is the import tool, Comprehensive Data Management System (CDMS). It is now part of the native HAZUS application and not stand-alone software that is released with each update. The “Release Notes” that come with HAZUS 2.0 will further describe all the changes and bug fixes.

The ability to integrate HAZUS 2.0 technologies into these analyses should allow for better assessments by the whole user community. I’m looking forward to its imminent release; as all HAZUS users should!