As Floridians brace for hurricanes amid the wild weather of 2025, some University of Florida researchers have their eyes on 2017’s Hurricane Maria, the deadly Category 4 storm that pummeled Puerto Rico.
Engineering professor and natural hazards researcher Brian Phillips, Ph.D., is leading UF’s efforts in a Hurricane Maria investigation conducted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, known as NIST.
The goal is increased safety and resilience amid deadly conditions.
Maria killed nearly 3,000 people and caused more than $90 billion in damage. Most of the island’s wind sensors and weather stations failed as the storm raged, leaving responders and investigators with few reliable weather measurements.
What went wrong?
Phillips and UF storm researchers are helping answer that question — and provide safety and structural recommendations — as part of NIST’s Hurricane Maria investigation. The full report will be released in 2026, but NIST recently published preliminary findings; some of the hazard and structural load data was derived from wind tunnel tests at UF’s NHERI Experimental Facility in the Powell Family Structure and Materials Laboratory on UF’s East Campus in Gainesville.